The Predator And The Prey
by Adianlangston
Summary: A highly paid professional Assassin goes after the only person to ever see her true face, but who will become the Predator and who will become the Prey. Read on to find out...PLEASE REVIEW if you like


There was something dark and sinister in the air that night. She stood on the wide balcony of the hotel, watching the city bustle about below her vantage point.  
  
The wind, as if sensing her melancholy mood, choose that moment to rise. Racing up the side of the massive hotel, it lifted her long hair from behind her back and whipped it across her face, as if to hide her from the world below.  
  
She shifted slightly, turning into the wind to let the mass of her hair be blown away again, revealing clear green eyes that twinkled in the lights from the city. Someone had once called her eyes pieces of jade. Clear and luminous they could twinkle in laughter, or burn in rage, showing all her emotions at any given time.  
  
Now, they were merely sad as they surveyed those going about their nightly business below. She lifted them finally, staring out over the New York skyline for a long time before turning away.   
  
There was much that needed to be done before the night had ended and she was the one to do it. She gently fingered the pendant on her neck with another soft smile, before heading inside to the single suitcase on the bed.  
  
Flicking the silver buckles with a twist of her wrist, her smile turned dark and foreboding as she lifted the lid to reveal the contents. Inside was dark gray eggshell foam cut into specific shapes. Slowly, almost reverently, she reached out toward one of the shapes and lifted the contents it protected. Her long nailed hand wrapped around the bluish steel of the gun and she lifted it with a revenant sigh as if she was welcoming an old and dear friend.  
  
Which, in reality, she was. A long time friend, it was, she mused with a soft smile as she settled the familiar weight into the holster under her shoulder. She reached forward again, and removed the rest of the guns one by one, placing them on various places about her slim, lithe body. Once armed, to the teeth as some would say, she turned for the door, leaving the empty case where it lay.   
  
She would not be back to retrieve it.   
  
  
Sometime later that night...Downtown New York  
  
The crowd that ringed the Rave club was youthful in its exuhuberance that night. Teens mostly surrounded the abandoned building, flocking like moths to a flame for the one night affair. Tomorrow night this 'club' would be somewhere else in the city, some other abandoned building with barely 24 hours of notice to those that wanted to know it's whereabouts for the night.  
  
She stood on the fringes, her jade colored eyes watchful ...waiting ...waiting for one to show his face. Her long, black coat covered her from neck to ankle, and billowed gently in the cold wind from the heavens.  
  
It was the dead of winter, and the black clouds barely discernable above the city lights threatened them with snow, but she seemed unconcerned as she leaned against the brick of the building. Those around her shivered in their effort to stay warm, or cuddled with their partners to share body heat as the chilling wind settled around them like the icy hand of hell.  
  
~An appropriate description.... ~ she gently said to herself, as her green eyes shifted to follow the growing crowd.  
  
But still the one she waited for hadn't shown. Then finally, after what seemed an eternity, a long stretch limo pulled up to the curb, parting the Ravers without question, even though it had slowed to a mere crawl. One of the doormen to the club, as non-descript as any other 'muscle head' stepped forward, parting the crowd further to open the back door.  
  
A scream went up through the crowd as the man for whom she waited emerged from the backseat with a white-toothed smile and a raised hand to acknowledge the crowd of screaming teens around him. He was one of the hottest young stars on the Hollywood scene today and his brown eyes flashed at the crowd as his smile widened at the screaming mob.  
  
He was drinking in the attention of the young girls, holding them captivated as he waved jauntily before turning with the doorman to wend his way inside.  
  
That was when she moved. Slowly at first, shouldering aside the ones trying to gain a peek at the movie star they'd hopefully get a chance to meet once inside, with the ease of a natural predator. Someone had once told her that she just had an 'air' of natural intimidation. Like a jungle cat. So pretty to look at, but lethal to touch or get within a swipe of her deadly claws. Which in her case was her hands, or anything they might contain at the time.  
  
She was 10 feet away when she was halted as the mob surged forward slightly and she momentarily lost her track on the target. They parted like the red sea in the next moment and she gained more ground. She was seven feet away when it happened again, and the screaming throng of teens cut her off. But she was patient. If she didn't get him outside, she would inside. Either way, he was here now, and that's all that mattered.  
  
Then the crowd parted once again, and she saw her chance. Leaping forward like a quickly striking snake, her weapon had cleared leather before she was even two feet away. She raised it, continuing to walk forward like the predator she was. The barrel was barely inches away from the back of his head when it went off with a loud boom.  
  
The front of his head exploded all over the back of the muscle man that was shouldering his way through the crowd for the young star, and she smiled in terse satisfaction as it took him a moment to realize what the warm sticky sensation was on the back of his head.  
  
He lifted a stunned hand to his hair and drew it forward to gaze at it in stupefaction before letting out an unmanly like scream of terror at seeing his blood coated hand. He too slumped forward then, dead before he hit the ground as the bullet from her massive .44 Automag had torn through his head as well.  
  
The unnamed movie star was already dead, and she took a moment to give his shoulders a slight push so that he too slumped to the ground. The girl that had been reaching out to touch him, drew back her own blood-coated hand, and let out a scream that was pure terror and nothing more. A ripple ran through the crowd as word of what happened filtered from one scream to another. One murmur to another, until finally, the crowd that surrounded the Rave club stood still in shock.  
  
And the Predator melted away.  
  
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++  
  
A week later...Somewhere in the South Pacific Islands  
  
"Young Movie Star Cut Down In His Prime..." screamed the headlines of the paper spread out on her lap. She fingered it lightly, once, then folded it and set it to the side on the sand. She didn't need to read the accompanying article to know what it said. She had been there after all.  
  
She leaned her head back against the chaise lounge and closed her brilliant green eyes.   
  
"Enjoying yourself?" Asked a familiar male voice as a shadow passed over her chair. He set a silver case on the sand next to her and let out a putrid whoosh of breath.  
  
"Yes." She said without moving. "You?"  
  
The large male flopped heavily into the chair beside her with a loud puff of air. "No..." he grumbled, wiping his forehead with an already soaked handkerchief. "This heat is damnable. I don't see how you stand it...." He muttered softly, again swiping at his forehead.  
  
She didn't lift her head, nor crack an eye at him as she answered without a pause. "I rather like it." She said her tone light and melodious. "I think I might stay for awhile." She added after a thoughtful moment.  
  
"To each his own. I'm going back to my air conditioning thank you." He said a moment before pushing his considerable fat carcass off the chair.  
  
"Nottingham?" Her soft tone called out before he'd gained much ground back toward the welcoming coolness of the resort. He paused, and she could 'hear' his shoulders slump in dejection as he turned slightly to await her command.  
  
"Two weeks." She said softly, still not lifting her head or cracking an eye at him as she spoke. "I'll wait for your call."  
  
A heavy sigh filtered to her then, and her smile brightened slightly. "Yes Ma'am." the heavy set male breathed out. ~Gods, but I hated my job.... ~ he mumbled to himself as he headed back inside the cool interior.  
  
She lay back again, contentedly patting the silver case next to her. The job in New York had been an easy mark. One that didn't even 'begin' to challenge her considerable resume of skills. Easy target...easier kill. Hell, the boy hadn't even known what hit him.  
  
She sighed again, tilting her head to receive the rays of the South Pacific sun. It felt good, warming her outside, if not her inside, and she smiled again. It was a soft action of content in that moment, though she knew that contentment wouldn't last very long. It never did.  
  
But for the moment, it was enough. She needed a challenge though. Needed something that would bring back that 'rush' of adrenaline. That 'rush' that came to her in rare moments it seemed these days. She'd been at this for a 'very' long time, too long, if she wanted to be honest with herself. Which in all reality, she 'didn't' want to be honest with herself just then. She actually rather liked being what she was, and she was 'damned' good at it, she mused as she again patted the case beside her.  
  
Later on that night found her seated at one of the many nightclubs that were popular in the islands. It was packed to the bursting point with American tourists, so she had no compunctions about fitting in, or standing out. It was "the season" here, and she smiled softly around the rim of the margarita in her hand as she eyed the crowd around her.  
  
Most of the men and women had already partnered off in the early evening, with the exception of a few stragglers that hung on the edges of the dancing, gyrating crowd. She shifted her long hair, flipping it over her wide, muscular, tanned shoulder. She wore a simple sundress of an almost pastel gold that brought out the flecks in her eyes. It hugged her upper body like a second skin, shimmering over her well-endowed breasts, flat stomach and rounded hips. Her long, shapely, 'very' muscular legs were encased in the wide, flowing skirt, and she smiled softly as she shifted to re-cross her long legs.  
  
The golden heels were a perfect match and accentuated her long, shapely legs causing her muscles to flex with each step she took. They weren't 'overly' high, but enough to bring a tantalizing curve to an already curvy leg.   
  
She took another sip of the margarita in her hand and smiled again, catching the eye of a male across the bar. Lifting the salted rim in his direction in invitation, she flicked her eyes to the seat beside her for just a moment before lifting them again to catch his.  
  
He rose slowly from his seat and made his way through the crowd and to her side. He was a 'pretty boy'. Young, in his mid 20's, and she held out a hand to the bar seat beside her with another wide smile. "Hi...." she said, her tone soft and melodious and just loud enough to be heard over the pounding beat of the music in the club.  
  
"Hi." He returned, his own voice rumbling with a deep baritone. "Buy you a drink?" He asked, nodding toward her half empty glass.  
  
She nodded once, crisply, seeing no reason to speak her ascent. The young man raised his hand at the bartender and indicated both their glasses needed attention. The bartender waved his chin in acknowledgement, and he turned to her again. His blue-gray eyes roved over her 'obvious' attributes in blunt appraisal before he asked with a calm smile, "What's your name?"  
  
She laughed, and it subsided into a grin a moment later as she returned with a question of her own. "Does it matter?" As her jade green eyes glittered in the lights from the bar and she tossed her long hair over her shoulder with a twist of her head.  
  
He shrugged his muscled shoulders, rustling the soft cottony material of his gray polo shirt. A shirt that matched his eyes almost perfectly, though she was sure it was unintentional. Men didn't tend to think of such things, especially the young ones she'd found in her years. When he spoke to answer her question, his own eyes twinkled in anticipation. "I suppose not." He finally said by way of acknowledgement. "Though it would be nice to call you something other than hey you..." he teased, his eyes twinkling again as they roved over her long, lithe form perched on the barstool beside him.  
  
Again, she threw back her head and laughed as the bartender placed their drinks before them. She took a sip of the fresh margarita and smiled as she said softly. "Care to take a walk?" As she nodded toward the beach outside the club, not 100 feet away, and her eyes twinkled with another unspoken invitation.  
  
His own twinkled in anticipation and she saw his khaki pants 'tent' with his arousal. He could only nod his acceptance, quickly downing the beer he'd ordered before rising. He allowed her to precede him a few moments later and they headed off toward the waiting sand.  
  
And welcoming moonlight of the night.  
  
  
Several days later again found her lounging comfortably on the beach. The one nightstand she'd had was just enough to content her. She hadn't seen the young man again, but had thoroughly enjoyed his delicious body, all sinew and rippling in the moonlight as he lay beneath her on the moonlit sand.  
  
She smiled with the memory of it now, but knew the contentment of the moment would pass soon enough. He really had been good that night, bringing her pleasure as well as his own before she'd risen from the sand and walked calmly away. In her business one just didn't form attachments...to anything...much less anyone, she mused with a soft sigh.  
  
She'd been alone for a long time before that night. In one brief moment of weakness she'd almost invited him back to her bungalow for the night, but common sense had prevailed and she'd refrained.  
  
For one, she didn't settle long in one spot, at least longer than a few weeks, buying what she needed each time she stopped. Her global cellular phone was so high tech that it required her own satellite relay, one she'd sent up a couple of years before on a NASA mission, unbeknownst to them of course. There were times that being a Chameleon had it's advantages, and she'd walked into NASA as if she owned the place, unaccosted and unquestioned in her presence.  
  
Attaching the relay to the satellite bound for the stars had taken only a moment, and she was gone as quickly as she'd appeared with none the wiser for her presence. A week or so later, the satellite was up and running, the crew of the shuttle that delivered it having done their job efficiently, and she was in business, never even considering that someone would be able to locate her now.  
  
Only one person on the planet had the number, and he feared her more than he did anything else that the Fates would throw at him. So she had no reason to worry that the number would fall into the wrong hands from that standpoint.  
  
It was the aforementioned cellular that rang a moment later stirring her from her internal musings. "Hello Nottingham." She said without preamble. "I'm going to assume you have something new and interesting for me to do today?"  
  
She heard the sigh in his voice and she smiled darkly. It was good to have someone of his stature on her side. One so high up within certain circles that his actions, regardless of what they were, were almost beyond reproach. "Yes. You can pick the file up at the desk."  
  
She disconnected the call without answering and rose gracefully from the chaise lounge. She'd changed her hair today. Gone was the deep, midnight black hair she normally sported. In it's place were long, golden flowing locks which curled gently just above the cheeks of her ass. Her golden tan merely complimented the new hair and she pushed the mirrored shades higher on her nose as she walked among the happy tourists that lounged on the beach. They had no clue that a natural born predator stalked among them, and they never would, for her next job was not here.  
  
  
  
She disembarked the plane at the Los Angeles International Airport. Her blond hair, deeply tanned skin, and shapely body fit right in with those she walked among and blended her into the crowd with no one giving her more than appreciative glance for her natural attributes.  
  
She was dressed in a simple skirt of pale blue that flowed about her when she walked, white flat sandals, and a light blue blazer over a simple white low cut, sleeveless blouse. Her well-endowed chest stretched the material almost to its limits and she walked with a confidence that was lost on very few.  
  
Her stride said, "Look at me and watch me pass with regal grace..." as she strolled casually amongst the returning vacationers from distant resorts. Her new target was in LA and she wasn't going to waste time. She slung her single, small carryon over her shoulder, which held her cellular, credit cards, fake driver's license, and passport to return to the U.S.   
  
She smiled sweetly to the customs officer, bending slightly to give him a full view, and was quickly cleared by the pimple-faced youth without even so much as a glance at her fake passport. Being a Chameleon certainly came in handy at times she mused with a soft, inviting smile in his direction before she continued on to her ultimate destination.  
  
Nottingham had a limo waiting for her and she slid into the backseat without waiting for the driver to get out and receive her. "I assume you know where we're going?" She asked, her voice turning deep and commanding as she eyed him in the rearview mirror, her green eyes chips of pure, cold ice.  
  
The muscle man, as non-descript as the one in New York had been, gulped loudly and nodded slowly. "Good, then get too it." She added by way of soft command, before pushing the pair of characteristic mirrored shades on her face and turning to stare out at the passing scenery without another word.  
  
  
An hour later they were pulling up to the exclusive hotel reserved for celebrities and the very rich. "She" was very rich, in her own right, but today, she was not. She was merely a pauper compared to some of these people, in her current guise anyway. As they arrived, she leaned forward in between the seats and spoke softly into the driver's ear. "You've never seen me..." she said in that same dark voice.   
  
With a pleased smile over the shiver of fear that racked his large frame, she opened the back door herself and got out. Phase one complete, on to phase two, she mused with another smile. Acquiring the target.  
  
  
  
Jake McConnell sat outside LA's Waldorf Astoria hotel and covered a yawn with the back of his hand. LA's typical summer heat was oppressive to say the least and the AC in the car had conked out on him hours ago. But he couldn't do anything about it until his shift ended later on that evening, accept suffer through it.  
  
Which he did?  
  
"Heads up..." Gabriel Frost said from beside him as he raised the 35mm camera to his eye and snapped off a series of shots in the direction of the hotel entrance. "We got a possible..." he said, snapping some more, the auto winder whirring furiously.  
  
Jake looked in the direction he was aiming the camera and felt a low whistle echo threw the car as he spotted the blond bombshell exiting the white stretch limo. He chuckled, as the woman didn't even pause before entering the hotel proper. "Gabe, your nuts. It's just some hooker." He commented, covering another wide yawn with his hand.  
  
He pulled at the collar of his white button down shirt and shifted slightly on the hot leather of the seat. He was hungry, sweaty, smelly, and tired. He desperately needed a shower and some air conditioning, but it wasn't to be for at least another three hours, he noted glancing at his wristwatch with a dejected sighing sound.  
  
"Well," Gabe shot back defensively, "The report said that in all likely hood the assassin was a woman...you know that Jake..."   
  
Jake looked at his partner of three years and sighed softly. "Do you 'honestly' think a woman assassin would look like 'that'?" He questioned in return, nodding his chin toward the goldenly tanned, blond as she walked into the hotel with a confident, and yes sexy swagger to her hips.   
  
Jake felt the beginnings of an erection between his legs and groaned softly. That was all he needed right now. A raging hard on at some blond LA hooker while on duty...he mentally reprimanded himself staring hard at the junction of his long legs.  
  
McConnell wasn't a small man by any means. A former football player he'd turned to a life of law enforcement just out of college when he didn't make the draft to the pros. He wasn't bitter about it, and was actually thankful for the discipline and sheer size a couple of good years of college level ball had given him.  
  
He often used his massive 6'6" of height, and equal girth, to intimidate a situation before it got out of hand. In the years since he'd turned to law, he'd only once had to pull his weapon on a suspect, but had more than once merely intimidated a perp into behaving without incident...or into dropping their weapons outright with a line like, "Shooting me is only going to piss me off..." or some such nonsense, whatever happened to handily come to mind in the moment.  
  
He stifled yet another yawn in the oppressive heat and looked at Gabe again. Gabe was another story. Compared to his massive stature, the poor man was a midget, and often the brunt of many a departmental joke or two. They had been deemed David and Goliath on more than one occasion by those that knew them well.  
  
Gabe Frost was thin and lanky compared to Jake's big and bulky and barely reached his upper arm even standing on his tiptoes. Gabe weighed in at a bare 150 lbs, compared to Jake's own almost 300 lbs. But Gabe was a pacifist, as calm as a cat, preferring often times to wait and watch and see how it would all play out, instead of acting off the bat as Jake tended too.  
  
Jake was the more aggressive of the pair, often taking the 'bull by the horns' as his dad had said on more than one occasion in his lifetime. "Take the bull by the horns son.... life is what you make of it..." he'd add with an age-old smile on his weathered, leathery face. Jake had grown up in Texas, in a small town that was prominent in most of Texas, where the only action on a Friday night for teens was necking in the pickup truck. But he'd come out none the worse for wear, working hard in high school while his friends all got drunk, knowing he'd never stay in Texas once graduation passed.  
  
He had big plans, and even bigger dreams, and thus far he'd fulfilled most of them in general. A few still eluded him, but he was young, barely past 30, and had plenty more years to go yet. But still, he'd managed to gain two degrees, BA's both, while in college on the football scholarship and had come out prepared to go for his Masters in Law Enforcement.   
  
He hadn't quite gotten that far yet, but was planning on going back to school sometime in the next year to actually do it. He'd become wrapped up in the action once college was done, and had worked his way up the ranks to earn his golden shield with the LAPD just the year before.  
  
He reached down to his waist and fingered the glittering shield for a moment with pride in his heart for his accomplishments. He just wished his father had lived long enough to see him get it. But it wasn't to be and he was   
alone in the world now, having lost his mother when he was only two. His dad and he had been very close, and he still felt a pang of loneliness his memory brought.  
  
But it was in the past, and he knew his dad wouldn't want him to dwell about it. So he didn't. He moved on...as always.  
  
Now, as he and Gabe sat in the sweltering heat, sweating, without so much as a whiff of a breeze to cool off, he thought back on their current assignment.   
  
The leader of some little known country in Iraq was in residence at the Waldorf. Some oil-laden country, and this guys family held the rights to that oil. He'd been invited to the U.S. for a conference to discuss the sale of said oil with some of this countries biggest oil, gas and electric companies.  
  
Unfortunately, the "Prince" had refused to have the LAPD provide him with any type of security on his visit, stating that his own security people could handle things, thus the reason for their discrete surveillance. Their car was a non-descript blue Cadillac the force had seized in a drug raid. An older car that wouldn't gain much attention and allowed them to survey the front of the hotel without questions.  
  
Naturally, they'd bugged the Prince's vast rooms, so they could keep a listen on things, as well as an eye, and it was at this point, after Gabe's comment about looking for a woman assassin according to the Interpol report they'd received the day before that Jake commented softly. "Well, if your 'that' concerned about a hooker, turn up the volume," he said softly, nodding toward the metal receiving unit that sat on the seat between them.  
  
Before Gabe even had the volume turned up fully, Jake was diving out the driver's side door and bolting across the street toward the entrance to the hotel. He was responding to the screams of terror that had been wafting across the tiny speaker in the bugs receiving unit.  
  
He drew his standard issue 9mm as he ran, unmindful of the traffic on the street whizzing past him or screeching to a halt to avoid hitting him. He heard Gabe's shout behind him, but he didn't pause, knowing screams of the dying when he heard them. Years on the force had given him a gut that some of his fellow officers often called phenomenal. He simply seemed to know when something was wrong, or about to happen, and had learned a long time ago when to listen and when not to.   
  
Now, as he pounded across the street and took the front stairs of the hotel three at a time, his gut was screaming in absolute agony. And something he might have labeled fear if he'd paused long enough to think on it. But he didn't, preferring instead to barrel through the hotel's lobby, gun drawn and held ready as he bolted for the stairs and took them three at a time as well up to the penthouse.  
  
He burst through the emergency stairs in less than five minutes, and was thankful, not for the first time that he kept to a rigorous work out schedule in his off duty time. He was barely breathing hard as he laid a hard shoulder to the fire door and rolled into the suite beyond.  
  
What he saw, made his stomach heave on itself, and he had to fight off the gag reflex and simply stare at the carnage of the room into which he'd landed in a crouch. His gun swiveled this way and that, his eyes watchful even as he stomach threatened to bring up his lunch and breakfast, but he already knew that the suspect was long gone.  
  
He saw it; at the exact same time he heard it. The door slowly swinging closed on the far side of the room. The door to the roof. He bolted upright, running through the carnage of the room without looking, focusing merely on the door on the other side. As with the first, he laid a shoulder to it and rolled through coming up in a crouch with weapon ready.  
  
But there was nobody there. He listened, pausing his own breathing and opening his ears for any sound. His gut still screamed in clenching agony, and he listened intently for anything to tell him which way the guy had gone. He knew it was a male. It had to be given the carnage he'd just left behind. Only a man could be so cold and calculating.  
  
Then he heard it. Just the barest whisper of cloth against cloth above him. Rising immediately, he shot up the stairs like a man possessed by something, heading for the roof. He knew Gabe was somewhere behind him, but after what he'd just seen; the perp was going down and down hard.  
  
If only Jake had known how true that statement was going to turn out to be, he might not have chased after the soft sound on this day. But he did, listening only to the pounding of his gut in that moment. And not his head. They were only one flight from the roof and he took the fourteen stairs in just moments, still not breathing hard in the slightest as he burst onto the roof to receive his second surprise of that day.  
  
Standing on the edge of the roof was the strangest sight he'd ever seen in his entire life. It was a woman, most decidedly that, given the long length of her form that was encased from neck to ankle in a black suit that fit her like a second skin, showing off every single curve to her long legs, generous hips, and well endowed breasts.  
  
Her long blonde hair hung in a single plait down her back and she turned to face him, balanced precariously on the edge of the 30-story hotel. He raised his gun, shouting, "FREEZE.... LAPD...." as he dropped to a crouch half in and half out of the door to the roof.  
  
But instead of doing as he commanded, she smiled. She simply smiled at him and held her hands out to her side with a soft shrug of her shoulders. The material of her suit stretched over her ample chest with the action and he had to gulp, tearing his eyes away from it, and his decidedly unprofessional thoughts in that moment.  
  
He rose from his crouch, keeping the 9mm level and unerringly even on her form and started across the rooftop toward her. She continued to stand there calmly, as if she hadn't a care in the world and hadn't just mutilated 15 people on the floor below. And he knew it was her, but not because she carried a weapon of any sort. No, she was completely unarmed as she perched there on the edge of the roof. No guns, no knives, no swords. Yes, his gut screamed that she'd used a sword, but it was more her posture.   
  
More the way she held herself there. Suddenly the image of a jungle cat came to mind as her brilliant green eyes regarded him frankly as he came forward, step by step. She reminded him of the panther the LA Zoo had just recently acquired. She held herself there with a lazy, yet tensely coiled posture that spoke of her willingness to strike at the least bit of provocation.  
  
Her green eyes flickered just over his shoulder, an old trick if he ever saw one and he refused to take the bait with a slight, almost imperceptible, shake of his head. Her smiled widened in that moment and she shrugged her shoulders again as if to say, "Suit yourself..." then she actually spoke for the first time since his bellowed shout for her to freeze.  
  
"I'd 'duck' if I were you...." she said in the most unerringly, melodious voice he could ever remember hearing in his lifetime.   
  
He spun then, lightening fast, kicking himself for not thinking of the possibility that she wasn't alone. But it wasn't a partner that greeted his gaze, instead it was something much more terrifying.  
  
A small digital counter blinked at him, counting backwards with its red numbers.  
  
10.......9......8.....7......6.....  
  
Before the digital face had reached 5 he was backing away, turning to run for the roof's edge, hoping against hope that the blast would propel him to the smaller roof of one of the wings of the hotel.   
  
And praying that the landing wouldn't kill him.  
  
During all this, he watched as she turned herself, spread her arms and dove off the roof like a bird. Which is exactly what she turned out to be he realized in the moment he cleared the roof's edge.   
  
Time stood still and he watched with fascination as she floated away from the hotel on a set of wings. Literally. She'd built a handglider into the cat suit she wore and now leaned to the side and turned around one of LA's multitude of skyscrapers to disappear from his sight.  
  
The shockwave from the blast caught up to him then and propelled him forward as he'd known it would when he'd leapt for his life. ~Talk about a leap of faith.... ~ his mind cried out just as the front edge of the shockwave slammed into his back and pushed him downward.  
  
He saw the hardtop of the shorter roof rushing up to meet him and sent up one last final prayer. ~Please God...I've been a good person.... don't kill me yet? ~ He asked hopefully.  
  
~Nope.... not today young Jake.... not today...~ rang out a distinctively female voice in his mind as he fell toward the roof. Jake McConnell knew in that moment that he'd gone completely crazy.  
  
  
~Oh God.... ~ was his first thought as he slowly became aware of his surroundings again.  
  
~Yes my dear...~ was the answer he received as he groggily opened his eyes to take in his surroundings.  
  
He dismissed the voice in his head, and slowly forced open heavy lids. He took a deep breath, trying to confirm one way or another if he was alive or dead. The cool, sanitized air rushing into his lungs told him he was alive. But where? He wondered groggily as his mind focused in slowly.  
  
Or tried too. He realized that his eyes were met by pitch-blackness and he reached out blindly in the dark for something, anything to grasp a hold of. His hand grazed a metal railing and he held tightly to it as if he was dying.  
  
Am I dead? His mind questioned. Or blind? But there was no answering voice. No comment from that strange female. Then he heard it, a soft rustling of cloth next to the bed, and a voice came with it.  
  
"Good morning Mr. McConnell." She said in a deep, frank voice that came closer after a moment. "Are you awake in there?" She asked again, and he felt her pick up his wrist and hold it's pulse point for a moment.  
  
"Yes..." he returned softly, and he felt her jerk in reaction to his soft voice.  
  
After that was a flurry of activity around him, but to him it was only sounds though he knew his eyes were wide open.   
  
"Mr. McConnell. My name is Dr. Abode." Said a male, accented voice. "I'm head of Neurosurgery here at St. John's in LA." He stated in an official sounding tone.  
  
Jake began to panic then, reaching out blindly to touch something, anything that would give his darkened world a foundation. His questing hands finally landed on warm flesh and he held to it like a lifeline, though he didn't know who it was. A familiar voice finally came to him through the others, standing out in its familiarity. "Jake...buddy...it's Gabe." He said softly, before turning to those in the room and forcibly commanding them out in no uncertain terms.  
  
When the room was silent, Jake called out softly to Gabe. His partner answered almost immediately and he heaved a strong sigh of relief. "What...what.... happened?" He asked, but knowing he was going to dread the answer even before Gabe spoke again.  
  
"Do you remember anything?" Gabe returned his question with a question.   
  
Jake lay there and thought deeply for a long time, before finally answering in a weak, childish sounding voice. "I...I remember bodies...lots of bodies...a massacre...and chasing someone...a women...." he supplied after a moment. "I... I caught up to her on the roof...then a clock... ticking away.... and falling...then nothing..."  
  
He heard Gabe sigh, and then speak softly to fill in the gaps in his memory. "Jake... you were caught in an explosion set by the assassin. She/he...whomever, used enough explosives to level the penthouse...literally." Gabe supplied on a soft whisper. "The only thing that saved you from going up with it was jumping off that roof. Still...you were lucky to survive." He added. "You've got some bumps and bruises, and a broken leg, but nothing that won't heal with time." He stated, his tone sounding optimistic.  
  
"Why can't I see?" Jake asked after a long silence.  
  
"Dr. Adobe thinks it's just temporary. A result of the major concussion you received when you hit the roof, but he won't know for a few more weeks. Your noggin, big as it is, got quite the thump, and it's going to take awhile for everything to heal in their old buddy." Gabe said softly and Jake felt him sit on the bed next to his hip. "Now that your awake, we'll know more sooner than that, he hopes." He added referring to Dr. Adobe in that moment.  
  
"How... how long have I been out?" Jake couldn't help but ask next.  
  
"Two months." Gabe said softly.  
  
Jake sat up in bed then and bellowed. "TWO MONTHS!!!!!"  
  
He felt Gabe's hands on his wide shoulders then, pushing him gently, but insistently back on the bed. "Easy now buddy. Just take it easy Jake. Don't get riled. The docs thought it better just to let you sleep it off and wait it out." He said, using his typical pacifist tone of voice.  
  
Jake turned blind eyes toward him then, and he knew they reflected his internal anguish no matter how he tried to hide it. "Two months..." he managed to whisper out. It took him only a moment to gain control of himself again, despite the circumstances, and he gulped softly. "What about the assassin?" He asked, remembering most of the case, though the last bit was still fuzzy in his mind.  
  
Gabe sighed softly. "Gone without a trace." He said calmly. "The explosion destroyed any evidence we might have been able to gather, though forensics went over the rubble with a fine toothed comb once the smoke settled."  
  
Again, Jake gulped softly, trying to relax against the bed in which he lay. "Did they find anything?" He asked after a very long pause.  
  
"No." Was Gabe's soft reply? "If he left anything behind, it was wiped out by the explosion. They didn't even get him on camera. They got the massacre...but I'll be damned if I've ever seen anything like it before in my life..." he sighed out and Jake felt the bed shudder when Gabe did. "It...it was like a movie or something. The fella walked in...And just started swinging this massive...massive...sword...but even he was a blur he moved so fast. It was like he was in fast forward mode, and the Iraqi's were stuck in slow motion..." Gabe whispered out and Jake could hear the awe in his voice.  
  
"The spec is..." He continued softly, "That the guy was some Chinese Ninja or something. Some expert with a sword like Bruce Lee or something. But they haven't even found the weapon yet. What body parts they could recover were burned beyond recognition, and it took them almost a month to put the Prince's remains together for an autopsy. Not to mention his personal security forces..."  
  
Jake flopped an arm over his eyes then, not that it mattered, but he did it more out of habit than anything else, his effort to block out the world so he could think. He went over everything in his mind, everything Gabe had said, and everything he remembered, twisting and turning it over and over. But his mind kept coming back to one thing. He was blind. Blind and crippled. Forget the case. Forget the assassin. He was more worried about doing his job again. Even being able to function normally.  
  
Finally, he asked the question with a supreme sense of dread, but knowing that he'd get a straight answer out of the one person he trusted most in the world. "Will I see again?"  
  
"They don't know....."  
  
  
Time passed slowly for Jake McConnell after that. He spent another four weeks in the hospital before Dr. Adobe would release him. The good Doctors reasoning was that being blind, which he still was completely, and having a broken leg wasn't a good combination for being on his own.  
  
But Jake had adapted well in those weeks. He'd remembered something someone had once told him, that when a person lost one sense, the others compensated to take up the slack. In his case, it proved right. He began to notice and use his other senses, coming to rely on them quickly. His sense of hearing became extremely acute until he could tell which nurse was coming his way just by her walk. His sense of smell intensified until he could tell what dastardly hospital food was on his plate for any given meal as it came down the hall and was served. His sense of touch doubled in short order, until he could readily identify whatever he happened to touch within a few moments.  
  
He also learned how to use a wheelchair by the second week. He was not a man to laze around broken leg and blind or not, and soon had the nurses chasing after him up and down the halls. It took some getting used to, knowing how many turns of the wheels on the chair to get to the nurses station, how many to the elevator, and so on.  
  
Finally Dr. Adobe was satisfied that he could function for the most part on his own and discharged him. But not without a stipulation. And that stipulation came with a name. Helga.  
  
Helga was to be his personal nurse for the next month, moving into his lofty apartment in the hills of West Hollywood until he fully adapted to the outside world and could have the cast on his leg removed. It was one thing to be in a controlled environment like the hospital and operating without incident, and quite another to do so in the outside world, as the good doctor had put it.  
  
Jake had to admit that he grudgingly agreed, knowing that he'd need help to adjust his apartment, move things within easy reach until he could walk, and so on. He was fortunate that he'd picked a first floor apartment, so only a ramp would need to be installed over three steps.  
  
Gabe had been a godsend through the whole mess, making sure his rent was paid, his bills were taken care of, even coming by on a daily basis with his mail. Granted most of it were his bills, but still it was the thought...and his reading of the playboy magazines he received. One of his vanities, he conceded, and while he couldn't enjoy the pictures at the moment, Gabe's descriptions and his imagination was enough.  
  
Finally, the day came for him to go home and Jake found himself in somewhat of a melancholy mood. He was actually going to miss the hospital and it's staff, but his mood lightened at the thought of coming back for his physical therapy on a daily basis until the cast was removed, then weekly after that.  
  
He'd developed somewhat of a love/hate relationship with all the nurses on staff, and he'd heard more than one whispering behind their hands about his inherent good looks, then tisking with sadness that he was blind now. But that was neither here nor there. The one thing that Jake found he would miss more than anything else was being able to see a California sunset or sunrise again.  
  
He'd come to accept his condition now, and the fact that he'd never be a cop again, and while it was a very hard pill to swallow, he knew that once he settled into a routine he'd find something to do. He was fortunate that he had long-term disability and wouldn't have to worry about money or medical bills for a bit. Plus he had a bit of an inheritance left him by his father, and the farm in Texas still. It wasn't much but he'd always planned to retire there someday when his days as cop were done. Which it looked like they were.   
  
Dr. Adobe seemed optimistic that his sight would return, someday, but thus far Jake hadn't shown an improvement in that area. The rest of him had healed nicely; his leg was knitting together fine, as well as the bumps, cuts and bruises, and mentally he was fit as a fiddle. But his eyes refused, simply refused to get any better.  
  
Which is why Jake had accepted his fate for now. Oh, at first he tried to will his damaged eyes to get better, but soon found that the intense concentration only gave him migraines and gave up after the first few weeks. After that, he adapted to it like a duck takes to water. Second nature, he'd heard a nurse comment once, almost as if he was born blind.  
  
He'd shuddered at that, but hadn't commented. He had never been one to cry over spilled milk, as the saying went, preferring instead to move on and adapt to his surroundings, whatever they happened to be at any given time. And right now, that was being blind as a bat, literally, and getting over it to function again.  
  
And then there was Helga. Or as he soon came to call her, Hellbitch. They'd met for the first time on the day he was released from St. John's and from that moment, he'd come to develop an intense dislike for the woman. She was like a drill sergeant in sheep's clothing. Ordering him to and fro like he was helpless. Which he wasn't, he just needed help now and again once they were home.  
  
Gabe had had a ramp installed, and that first day she'd pushed him without preamble into the apartment. Fortunately, his apartment in West Hollywood was large and spacious and he had no problems maneuvering the smaller wheelchair Gabe had purchased for him around.  
  
It took Helga only two days to completely reorganize his entire apartment and his life in one fell swoop. Like a general descending straight from the battle lines, she took complete control of his apartment placing everything within easy reach of his questing fingers without a word.  
  
She dictorially explained late on the second day exactly how she had laid everything out for him, then turned and left him alone in the living room without so much as a good night. She'd taken up residence in his second bedroom and made no bones about the fact that it was completely off limits to him.   
  
He sat there, on that second night, alone in the silence of his own home and thought. From her smell, Helga seemed like she was all woman. He consistently got the smell of lilacs off of her. But from her touch, she felt like she weighed a good 300 lbs. Even her steps were heavy and foreboding, lending to a not so pleasant image of her.  
  
This image was further intensified when on the morning of the third day back in his own home, she helped him into the tub in the bathroom. At first he was embarrassed at being naked in front of her, until she said in the most stern voice he'd ever heard from a female, "Sonny, you don't have 'anything' I haven't seen in 20 years as a nurse." Before promptly wrapping her arms underneath the pits of his and lifting him bodily from the chair.  
  
She'd perched him on the side of the long tub, which he'd had remolded the year he'd moved in to accommodate his natural size, and left him alone to get in. Fortunately it was his left leg that had been broken so he easily slid into the tub, keeping the plastic wrapped cast well out of the water.  
  
  
It was a couple of mornings later; almost a week after they'd moved in, that they had their first real humanized talk. His days had pretty much fallen into a routine. He'd rise in the morning, get himself into the chair and head off to the kitchen to find the efficient Helga already up and cooking breakfast for both of them.  
  
It was on this morning that he commented on it as he wheeled himself into the room. "Helga...." he said by way of greeting before going on to add, "How do you expect me to learn to do anything here when you're still doing it?" He asked as he inched toward the side of the table without a chair because of his wheels.  
  
The ample woman chuckled softly, the first human, non-dictorial sound he'd heard out of her since meeting her. "Your right Mr. McConnell. I apologize. Its just habit for me." She stated in her matter of fact tone. "I'm up at 5:30 am everyday rain or shine...," she added. "And you know what they say, Idle hands make for the Devil's work..." she intoned sounding like something right out of the Bible belt, not an LA born and bred native.  
  
Which she'd let slip that she was a couple of days before this particular morning. He flashed her his most brilliant, charming smile in that moment, nodding at her words as he did so. Hoping that in this one moment they could make some small progress towards getting along. "It's ok. But I'll make you a deal."   
  
When she didn't answer, he continued softly. "You handle breakfast, and I'll handle lunch and dinner from now on?" He asked his tone hopeful in that moment that she'd accept his offer without argument.  
  
He heard her move across the floor with her formidable steps and set a plate on the table in front of him. "Mr. McConnell, you have a deal." She said from her position next to him. "But I 'don't' do TV dinners." She said referring to her first perusal of the contents of his refrigerator upon their arrival.  
  
Gabe, in his good intentions, had tried to fill his apartment with food he knew Jake liked, primarily TV dinners and canned food. A problem Helga promptly rectified with good old-fashioned meats, vegetables, canned, fresh and frozen, and a fully stocked fridge.   
  
Jake chuckled now, nodding his agreement. "Deal. Though I warn you I haven't cooked in awhile, so the first few meals may be horrific, but I'm willing to give it a go if you are?" He asked again, his tone hopeful once more.  
  
He received a snort but took it for acquiescence just as the doorbell rang. "I'll get it...," he said, turning his chair and wheeling himself off toward the front door.  
  
For her part, "Helga" sagged back against the kitchen counter the moment he was gone from the room. She took several hard, calming breaths and waved a hand before her face. Even though the large apartment was air conditioned, she'd felt a rush of heat at his smile. A simple act, when one thought about it, but on Jake McConnell's handsome face, it had a decidedly unpleasant affect on her.   
  
It had begun, to her chagrin, somewhere in the vicinity of her womanhood when he'd flashed that charming grin at her, and continued to pulse along every nerve ending in her body the more he teased her about his cooking, of all things.  
  
She ground her teeth together for a moment, trying to get her emotions under control while he was gone. She heard him at the door, speaking to Mr. Frost, Gabe, in a happy jovial tone of welcome and she straightened from the counter and turned back to the breakfast at hand. She whipped up another couple of eggs, threw on a few more pieces of bacon, and added another couple of pieces of toast for Jake's partner, who was undoubtedly hungry.  
  
Adopting the "stern nurse" air again, she felt she had herself reasonably under control as the two men came back in the room laughing at something one or the other of them had said as they came through the house. By the time Gabe greeted her, all he saw was the ample woman she wanted him to see, with her wide waist, tightly bunned hair, and age lines around her soft blue eyes.  
  
The body suit she wore was hot as all get out, even in the air conditioning, but she'd suffer with it until she knew for certain exactly how much Jake McConnell remembered about her.  
  
  
Gabe entered the room on the heels of Jake's chair and took up a seat at the table. He was comfortable and relaxed, completely at ease in his partner's home. He never gave nurse Helga a second thought, or a second look for that matter. He was happily married after all, and the poor woman must weigh a good 300 lbs if she weighed an ounce, he mused with a silent guffaw at his thoughts.  
  
It wasn't that he was a swallow person, though most in LA were, it's just that Helga reminded him of his grandmother, or what he would imagine a grandmother to look like anyway, and just wasn't his type. Good lord, she had to be pushing 50 if she was a day, he mused silently to himself, until Jake caught his attention a moment later with his comment.  
  
"Helga and I have come to an understanding Gabe. She handles breakfast, and I'm doing lunch and dinner." Jake stated excitedly, his blind blue eyes twinkling with mischief as he said it.  
  
Surprisingly enough, as with most that loose their sight in unnatural circumstances, Jake's eyes hadn't begun to slide to the side of his face, or roll up in his head, but remained active, even though he couldn't see out of them. They moved with his thoughts, or wherever he happened to be looking or facing. Dr. Adobe was at a loss to explain that particular trait, except to chalk it up to a block somewhere between the actual cornea of his eyes, and his brain, almost as if Jake had been blindfolded from the inside out instead of the other way around.  
  
He blinked readily as well, as if his eyes knew that they would indeed see again someday and needed to remain healthy and active, even if they were dormant from the inside out temporarily. Gabe shook his head now as Jake turned those eyes in his direction and chuckled before adding to his previous statement.  
  
"Why don't you inform the good nurse about my legendary cooking?" He asked with another soft chuckle.  
  
"More like legendary 'burning'." Gabe shot back with a chuckle of his own. "Why do you think I filled this place with TV dinners and canned stuffs?" He teased.  
  
"Ah...come on now Gabe. One tinsey fire and I 'never' live it down. It wasn't 'my' fault 'your' cat knocked the towel onto the burner." Jake quipped out on a slightly defensive note.  
  
"TINSEY!!!" Gabe teasingly screeched. "You practically burned my 'house' down partner...after I invited you and everything..."  
  
"I did 'not'..." Jake returned with a teasing screech of his own, but the effect was lost with his outrageous laughter as he leaned back in his wheelchair as both men shared the hilarity of the situation.  
  
  
"Helga" had to turn away and concentrate on her duties at hand, trying to ignore the two men, and the fluttering in her belly at their evident camaraderie. It was easy for her to see why McConnell was so well liked within his department of the LAPD. His laugh came easily; despite the circumstances in which he now found himself, and if she was honest with herself, the man was absolutely drop dead gorgeous.  
  
That thought brought another flutter to her belly and someplace else, but she stomped it down with only a mild heated flush to her cheeks. Quickly, while the two men continued to tease one another easily, she served up Gabe's plate and slid it across the table to where he sat beside his long time friend.  
  
She stood for a moment, crossed her arms over her ample chest, and spoke in Jake's direction. "I've got some errands to run today Mr. McConnell, so you're going to be alone most of the day. I'll be back in time for dinner." She stated in her best no nonsense nurse's voice.  
  
"Don't worry about it Helga." Gabe answered instead of Jake. "I'll keep him company." He added with a smile. "I took the day off to visit with him anyway and thought we might go and do some 'guy' stuff."  
  
She fixed him with a blue eyed, stern look, but nodded. "No funny business." She stated in a suddenly fiercely protective sounding voice. "No alcohol. He's still on medication and it won't mix well." She fixed him with another cold stare, indicating she was dead serious, then added. "Understand?"  
  
Gabe was helpless but to do more than nod his agreement before squeaking out a weak, "Yes, Ma'am."  
  
"Helga" nodded crisply, spun on a heel and left the kitchen without another word. Jake's rolling, easy laughter followed her departure and she heard a comment that sounded something like, "Meet the Hellbitch..." before he seemed to collapse into laughter again. Gabe's soft, "I'll say..." followed through the rolling belly laughs of Jakes, and "Helga" could only nod her head in silent agreement. If only they knew...were her musing thoughts as she disappeared into her room momentarily.  
  
She came out a moment later, closing the door behind her with a soft click and headed off to do her errands.   
  
An hour later found her seated at a cyber-cafe somewhere on the East Side of Hollywood. Her laptop was open on the table in front of her and gone was the nurse's outfit. She sat in a casual outfit of shorts and floppy t-shirt, her long hair pulled back into a ponytail to blend in with the variety of students around her.  
  
A cold cappuccino sat on the table beside the small laptop, and she waited, staring at the screen as the file she was receiving via email downloaded.   
  
When it was finished, she clicked it open and stared at the screen intently as she read. No one would recognize her from her "Nurse Helga" persona now, but her ears listened to her surroundings intently, despite her relaxed posture at the table as she read the file Nottingham had gathered.  
  
She'd already done an extensive amount of research on Jake McConnell even before deciding to become Nurse Helga, but this file was making for interesting reading nonetheless.  
  
It was a bit more graphical beyond the standard information one could find out about a person. Giving extensive details about his life and his cases thus far. McConnell had developed somewhat of a reputation in the department for always getting his man in the end. For some reason, that thought sent a slight shiver of dread down her spine as she read his commanding officer's comments from his personnel file.  
  
She'd really hate to have to dispose of Jake McConnell, but she would if push came to shove. She'd regret it certainly, of that there was no doubt, maybe even be a bit heartsick at the prospect, but never the less she would do it if she had too.  
  
She'd developed a very prestigious reputation in certain circles and she wasn't about to have that ruined by the likes of a mere man. She thought about that for a moment and the mental image of him seated in the chair and smiling at her with that smile, brought another heated flush to her cheeks.   
  
That would never do. She couldn't and wouldn't have herself compromised by Jake McConnell. She prided herself on very few things. One of those was the fact that no one that had ever seen her true face when she was working had lived to tell the tale. Quite often her face was the last thing many had seen just before they died and passed to the afterlife.  
  
She flipped another page to the file on McConnell and continued to read, engrossed so much so, that she forgot the time. When she looked up, several hours later, she realized that she was going to be late, well passed the appointed time that Nurse Helga was to return.  
  
She cursed herself mentally, closed up the laptop and was leaving the cafe within moments. She had to rush, and dress as she went to bring Nurse Helga to life again, but she managed it efficiently, even with traffic. Which actually worked to her favor. The darkened windows of her van, also worked to her advantage, as she pulled on the heavy suit that was Nurse Helga, then the wig, the makeup, and finally she began speaking in the deep, gravely, stern voice that she used.  
  
When she pulled up in front of his apartment sometime later, she was fully in character as she stepped inside, carrying some bags she'd thought to bring along just in case. Fortunately, before her trip to the cafe, she had done some shopping, so it was easy for her to lie to McConnell as she began putting away the groceries she'd purchased.  
  
Jake wheeled himself into the kitchen, a look of worry on his face as he came to a stop a short distance from her. "Are you ok?" He asked, tilting his head to one side to listen to what she was doing.  
  
She grunted in his general direction, continuing to put the things away in their appropriate places. "I'm fine. Just got caught up in the traffic." she stated in the tone that brooked no argument.  
  
"Well, here." He said, and she turned slightly to see him sitting there holding out a cell phone in her general direction. "Take this. It's my old phone from the department. The next time it happens, just call and let me know. I was worried." He stated simply, but she could see the truth of it in the depths of his blue eyes.  
  
She reached a shaky hand toward the phone and for a moment mentally berated her for not thinking about his feelings and that he might be concerned for her safety, despite the fact that he called her the Hellbitch when she wasn't around.  
  
The thought brought her up short and for a moment she was almost sincere in her apology. "I'm sorry Mr. McConnell. I'll try and be more considerate in the future." But it was only part of the character she was playing in that moment. Nothing more. Nothing less.  
  
~Oh who are YOU kidding?~ her brain picked that moment to say.   
  
She rolled her eyes heavenward, thankful that Jake couldn't see her. Mentally she answered herself. ~Obviously not 'you'...~ she said to herself then. ~Otherwise you wouldn't be reminding me that this man is drop dead gorgeous every five seconds...and doing strange things to my stomach....and other places.....~  
  
Her brain had the gall to laugh at her in that moment. ~Exactly....~  
  
But outside, she sighed, tucked the cell phone away in her ample purse and said softly toward Jake. "Truly, I didn't think. I'm sorry." Even though it was in her stern Nurse's voice.  
  
He flashed her a relieved smile and turned the chair away again to wheel himself off into another part of the apartment. Again she was very thankful that he couldn't see, even though she had inadvertently caused his condition with her bomb on the roof of the Astoria months before. Her face flushed heatedly for a moment and she quickly finished putting away the groceries mindlessly. Her thoughts though were lost to those flashing blue eyes, and the perfectly straight teeth that accompanied that smile.  
  
She well remembered the first time she'd seen him naked, helping him to bathe that third day. She'd thought she'd quite literally faint at his handsomeness, but had covered it thankfully with her stern comment about 20 years of nursing or something like that.  
  
But the image was still with her. The wide cut of his chest which tapered off into a trim, narrow waist, then flared out just right into a perfect set of hips for a man. The long length of his muscular legs, even with one casted, and his perfect feet. Not too wide for a man of his size, and not to small. Just...well, perfect.  
  
She sighed now, contributing her rampaging thoughts to a need to get laid again. She was by no means a celibate virgin, but neither was she a slut. But she was human. And a woman. A single woman at that. She quickly amended that thought with, ~A single horny woman, with a drop dead gorgeous hunk of male specimen not 20 feet away from her that she couldn't and wouldn't have. Ever...~  
  
But oh how she wanted to have it, she thought with a slightly shaky sigh. One thing she'd always been was honest...at least with herself. It was sort of difficult to be honest with others given her profession, but herself was a different matter. And in all honesty, she wanted Jake McConnell...and wanted him in the worst possible way.  
  
~Do you want him bad enough to give up everything you are? Everything you do?...~ her brain asked her in that one moment of honesty.  
  
She couldn't answer.  
  
  
It was several weeks later that found the two of them seated in a park near his apartment. The sun shone down on them, and the weather had cooled considerably, heading into fall.   
  
They had fallen into an easy routine in the last weeks. She would rise at 5:30 am, as was her habit and have breakfast ready and waiting for him when he wheeled in around 6. They'd eat and talk, actually Jake did most of the talking and she listened, but never the less it was companionable.  
  
After that, they'd move into the living room to watch the morning programs, and then it was off to his physical therapy. After a three-hour workout, which had begun as an hour, with Jake steadily increasing it almost daily, they'd either go out for lunch to a nearby restaurant, or bring a picnic to the park. Then it was back to the apartment where Jake would spend his afternoon at his computer learning to use the screen reader she'd installed and she would putter about the house cleaning, doing the laundry and what not.   
  
Then dinner, with Jake cooking and learning his way around the kitchen as time went by. Sometimes Gabe would stop by, with or without his wife depending on the day and they'd share a companionable dinner. She honestly liked Gabe's wife, although the woman reminder her of a church mouse. She was timid at first, and then once she learned to trust and got to know someone and was comfortable around them, she was non-stop chatter.  
  
She dressed in what she could only consider to be dowdy, with large baggy clothes that hid an obviously well endowed figure and her soft brown hair pulled tightly away from her face, much as Helga wore hers at the moment. Her brilliant brown eyes held a wealth of intelligence though, and she found herself engaged in rather deep conversations on more than one occasion with the woman.  
  
Conversations she found herself rather looking forward too with great anticipation. It had been a long time since she'd met a woman that could hold her own in a conversation with her, and she was rather enjoying some of the topics they had covered. From Sciences like genetic research to politics and everything in between. Gabe's wife, Mary, seemed most interested in the Arts however, and often expounded at great length about the most recent play she'd gone to see. Or musical, or opera.  
  
Gabe, unfortunately, was quite often her unwilling partner and would only groan and roll his eyes at his wife's artistic enthusiasm. Jake would laugh, knowing the sound of his groans and that he was rolling his eyes in dread and she found herself more than once having to suppress her own mirth and refrain from giving him a sympathic look in understanding.  
  
While she enjoyed a good play, musical, or opera herself, there were some that were just downright boring as well, and she could remember more than once in her travels and efforts to fill her time between jobs forcing herself to stay awake through the entire production. So she knew how Gabe felt.  
  
But it was on this particular day that she interrupted the particular routine they'd fallen into by asking a soft question as they sat next to each other on the grass beneath a tree in the park. Thank the Fates the heat had dimished in recent days and she wasn't sweating beneath the heavy body suit this day. Jake was leaned casually against a tree, his arms folded in his lap and his eyes closed.  
  
Even with the cast on his leg, which was due to come off that next week, he was the picture of masculinity. His soft brown hair, which he'd let grow a bit in the last weeks until it almost reached his collar now and curled enticingly there was slightly windblown now from the day's activities and their wheel through the park to come to this spot.  
  
His wide shoulders stretched out the material of his dark blue t-shirt tightly, making the palms of her hands quite literally itch to touch him like a lover. His long legs, one encased in tight fitting sweats that hugged his hips and flat stomach to perfection had one leg cut out of them to accommodate the cast still. She had often teased him about needing a new wardrobe once the cast was off in the last days, and he chuckled promising that she could help him pick out appropriate stuff in his darkened world so he didn't clash when he dressed.  
  
His blindness still worried her on some level, but she realized it was from the Nurse persona she'd adopted and nothing more. He'd professed one night the week before, in a rare moment of actual truthful conversation between them, that he honestly missed seeing the sun set and rise each day. It was a habit that he'd adopted long ago as a child to rise and watch the sun do so itself and greet the day. And she knew it was something he'd never confessed to anyone else, and probably never would again.  
  
She'd felt a moment of pained honesty that he'd chosen her to confess his fear too that he'd never see another sun rise or set again. It was in that one moment that she felt an honest pang of regret at her actions. At her thoughtlessness in planting the bomb at the last minute. She hadn't intended for an innocent to be hurt, even if he was a policeman. He was just doing his job and had become a victim of circumstances. Her circumstances.   
  
It was also in this one moment that she'd wished she'd done things differently that time. It was a shocking revelation to her, because she'd never felt anything like it in all her years as a professional assassin. But she'd taken something from this man. Something she couldn't give back even though she wanted too in that moment, very desperately.  
  
It wasn't that she'd taken his sight, or that he'd been injured because of her. No, it was the fact that she'd taken a piece of his soul with that one instant of decision. She'd always heard of those moments in one's life when one should zig instead of zag, and she found herself thinking of that decision in time as a zag instead of the zig she'd chosen.  
  
She'd come to realize in the weeks she'd spent with him that Jake McConnell was a kind and loving man. He cared about the people he loved, Gabe and Mary to name but two, and his friends in the department. She'd come to find out that he missed his father terribly, being as close as they'd been in the years previous. And he loved animals though he had none of his own currently.  
  
A good man just doing his job. And she hurt him, even though it was unintentional on her part. In that one moment of his confession about sunsets and sunrises, she'd almost told him everything. Almost.  
  
But she'd refrained, knowing full well the outcome of such a confession. Her butt in jail. He thought of her as Nurse Helga, his friend and caregiver. Nothing more. "If" she confessed who she really was, she knew the cop in him would instantly be on the phone to his buddies in the department and she'd have to kill him. Outright. But that wasn't something she thought she could do anymore, she realized with an abruptly shocking moment of clarity.  
  
Not to mention she had 15 some odd murders hanging over her head as well. There was no statue of limitations on murder, especially in the good old U.S. of A. She knew the cop in him wouldn't see her as a sincerely remorseful woman for his injuries. But would see the assassin that killed fifteen people without blinking an eye and blowing up the roof of a building.  
  
She sighed softly dragging herself back to the present with a mental moan of regret that their time together was almost at an end. As soon as his cast was off, he'd no longer need 'Nurse Helga' and her contract would be up.  
  
But she still had a few days with him, and would make the most of them as best she could. But still, she had to know. Had to know what he remembered about his accident. She hadn't broached the subject prior to now, hoping that as she won his trust he'd tell her anyway. But it hadn't happened, and she saw no recourse now but to ask.  
  
"Jake?" she inquired softly, her tone still the deep and gravely one belonging to Helga even though they'd long ago dispensed with being formal with one another.  
  
"Hmmmm?" he asked, not opening his eyes.  
  
"Tell me what happened to you?" she returned, letting her concern come through, despite the deep tone of her voice.  
  
He sighed, deeply, but not moving as he spoke. "I was wondering when you were going to ask that." he stated as casually as he could manage around the sudden lump in his throat. He hadn't spoken to anyone about his crippling accident, save Gabe that first time in the hospital, preferring not to dwell, but adapt to the hand that the Fates had dealt him.  
  
In all reality he hadn't thought much on it either. He didn't want too come to think of it. But he now found himself spilling out the whole story to this woman. Despite the gruffness in her tone, he heard the underlying concern there as well, and found himself drawn to it. Nurse Helga was a contradiction in terms to say the least. In one moment she could be as tough as nails and the next she was soft and as yielding as a feather in the wind.  
  
Now was one of those soft yielding moments and he found himself responding to it. "I was a cop as you well know." he began softly, not bothering to open his blind eyes as he spoke. "Gabe and I had been assigned to protect some foreign Prince here on official business. The good Prince insisted that his own security people could handle any threat, but we'd still been put on a 'very' boring surveillance detail by our Captain."  
  
He paused for a moment, a shudder racing lightly over his skin as he continued. "We'd bugged the Prince's suite at the Waldorf Astoria and were sitting outside. We'd gotten a notice from Interpol that there was an assassination contract out on him a couple of days before he arrived in the US, and told the Prince when he arrived. But he chalked it up to pure nonsense, saying his business was of no consequence or threat to anyone so he didn't see what all the fuss was about."  
  
He sighed again, paused for a moment more then went on. "Interpol suggested that the assassin might be a female, but 'we' laughed that off." he said softly and it was her turn to shudder slightly. "We were wrong." he added with a soft finality to his voice.  
  
He raised a hand and waved away his statement before continuing softly. "We saw this limo pull up and Gabe started snapping pictures of this blond bombshell that got out. She was tall. With these 'really' long legs...and..." he held both hands in front of his chest with his fingers curled inwards towards himself, pausing as if trying to find the right word. "Melons..." he finally finished in a sheepish tone and a crooked smile.   
  
He dropped his hands back to his lap as he continued. "I told Gabe she was probably just some hooker visiting one of the other hotel guests, but if he was 'so' concerned about it to turn up the volume on the bugs."  
  
He paused again, letting out his sigh with a whoosh of air and another shudder coursed over his massive frame before he continued. "When he did...and I heard...all the screaming...I...I already knew we were too late."  
  
He sighed deeply again, then went on, his voice soft and uncertain. "It all gets kind of fuzzy after that in all honesty. I remember running up the stairs to the penthouse, knowing I could get there faster that way than the elevator. And I remember seeing the door to the roof closing...but after that it's all a haze. Like a dream." he stated with another soft sigh, still not having bothered to open his eyes. "I remember being on the roof...and she was there....and then I remember flying...or maybe it was falling through the air, but I know there was some flying in there somewhere."  
  
He shrugged to dismiss the statement then went on. "And for some odd reason I remember numbers...counting backwards...and being scared as I flew through the air. But that's about it until I woke up two months later...." his voice trailed off for a moment then he added in a soft voice. "Banged up, broken leg and blind as a bat..."  
  
She shuddered, repressing a desire to reach across the intervening space and touch him, reassure him in some way in his anguish. "At first I...I felt helpless.....but then I remember something my dad taught me. 'Never cry over spilled milk.....just clean it up and move on.....'," he seemed to quote in what she assumed was an imitation of his father's voice.  
  
He sighed again, shrugging and rippling the dark blue t-shirt over his wide chest again before adding with a tone of finality to it. "So I did....."  
  
There was a long pause before she spoke. "Did you ever catch the assassin?" she asked, her tone unchanged, even though her 'heart', what there was of it anyway, was twisting in pain at the soft finality with which he spoke of accepting what she had done to him.  
  
He shook his head slowly as he said softly, "Nope.....gone without a trace. The explosion was carefully planned though and erased every 'scrap' of evidence in the resulting fire." he stated, again his tone holding a ring of finality with his words. "The roof fell into the penthouse, crushing then burning anything we could have 'hoped' to gather at the scene."  
  
There was a long pause, and when he spoke again, she thought she heard a tone of awe underlying his words. "Whomever she was, she was definitely a pro of the highest caliber." he stated softly. "I'd never even heard of anyone even remotely as thorough, destroying evidence with such finality and cold calculation it was scary...No one else in the hotel was harmed and the fire was just enough to ruin the floor before it burned itself out...if I didn't know better I'd have sworn, as would every other guy in the department that worked the case, that she planned every last detail of the hit, right down to the fire."  
  
She shuddered again, finding herself wanting to explain his misconceptions, but curbing her tongue. The explosion hadn't been planned at all, but she always carried her specially designed charges in case of emergency to destroy evidence in her wake if it was too hairy at that moment. A zig that 'should' have been a 'zag', she mused to herself again. It was a device that burned hard and fast, similar to a standard incendiary, but with much more of a kick than even normal C-4 plastic explosive. It was actually a mixture of several things that burned only a short period even within a conventionally fueled environment.   
  
It burned off it's own fuel, and once that was gone, so was the fire. An ingenious little device if she thought so herself, and one that only she knew about, though rarely used. Until now, and that once in a blue moon had damaged a good man that didn't deserve it. The Prince and his men had deserved it, but this man, the man that sat before her now, blind because of her, did not.  
  
Again, she found herself wanting to tell all, but refraining. The time wasn't right. So, she did the next best thing and asked softly. "And if you 'did' catch the assassin, what would 'you' do Jake?"   
  
He chuckled sardonically before answering her. "Arrest her. Put her in jail for the murders of the Prince and his men..." he said softly.  
  
"That the cop in you talking Jake." she admonished him in her Nurse Helga voice. "I was asking the man..."  
  
There was a long, contemplative silence before he answered softly. "I'd ask her why..."  
  
  
The next week found them in the hospital again. It was the day that Jake's cast would come off. Helga stood silently in the background, arms crossed over her ample chest, waiting patiently. Dr. Adobe first examined Jake's eyes for the umpteenth million time it seemed to her then shook his head, seeming to still find no reason for his blindness other than a psychological one of Jake's own making.   
  
But he didn't broach the argument they'd had numerous times already and merely bent to begin cutting away the cast with the small plaster saw. It only took a few minutes and the plaster split into two halves and fell away with a loud thunk.  
  
At first Jake slowly bent his leg, with a smile that his leg was finally free of it's confinement after so long, then he grimaced and his mouth flew open wide as the first cramp hit his little used muscles in protest at being used again. "Helga" was instantly at his side, gently rubbing the protesting muscles with calm, sure fingers until the pain passed and Jake seemed to remember to breath.  
  
He reached out blindly and grasped her upper arm as she massaged the cramps out and thanked her profusely as she eased his pain as she had so many times in the past weeks. "Oh...you are a godsend Helga..." he whispered out when he could breath again.  
  
His leg had lost a lot of it's bulk, but had weathered the casting well for the most part, though it would take him a couple of weeks to bulk it up again to it's full power.  
  
Dr. Adobe commented, bringing forth the walking brace he wanted Jake to wear until his leg was full strength again. "Your leg healed well Jake." he said, on a first name basis now. "But you'll still need this for support until it's back in tip top shape. It shouldn't take you long though, the way you work out to be up and around without it in no time flat." The foreign doctor teased softly as he fitted the brace around his leg then guided Jake's fingers to each of the straps and showing him how they worked.  
  
He raised an eyebrow at Helga then and she nodded, letting him know she'd make sure he was fully versed in how to put it on and remove it in short order. Adobe nodded himself and they left shortly there after with Jake taking his first unsure steps in months as he leaned heavily on her for support.  
  
  
They arrived home without incident sometime later on that afternoon and Jake flopped heavily onto the sofa with a heavy sigh. "Geez...I'd forgotten how much work walking was..."   
  
"Helga" disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a bottle of water, handing it to him as she spoke teasingly, her tone still deep and gravely. "Well what did you expect lazy butt." she said, placing the water into his hand. "You've been rolling around here pretty as you please for months. Of course your body is going to forget how to lug that massive carcass of yours around."   
  
Jake fell to her expert baiting and teased her back. "Massive carcass? Looks who's talking Shamu..." he teased, referring to her ample weight. Or at least what he thought was her ample tonnage of 300+ lbs. In reality, underneath the heavy body suit she was a trim 140 lbs of rock solid muscles, but he would never know that.  
  
Her tone turned serious then, coming to a subject neither of them had been willing to discuss until now. "Jake...my contract is officially up...with the temp agency...it...it was supposed to end last week...but I convinced them to let me stay until your cast was off..." she found the lie came easily to her lips, though she'd refrained from lying to him as much as possible in the last weeks. At least the important things like...well, herself and her past. Thankfully Jake had never asked about anything too personal so the lies she had told him weren't outrageous, just a few misguided truths, and a few omissions to say the least.  
  
Jake sighed heavily in response. "I know..." he said as his head drooped to his chest. "But...but I don't want you to leave. I've...I've kind of gotten used to having you around...." he confessed in an honest tone. "You've done so much for me Helga...despite our squabbles...I...I like you..."  
  
"Helga" gulped, forcing the lump in her throat away, or at least making a valiant effort at it, but failing after several tries. It was her turn to confess in a soft tone. "I know...me too..." before she turned her back to him and blinking away her tears. She knew he couldn't see them, but his over sensitive ears undoubtedly heard them.  
  
Those ears of his had almost been her downfall at one point, but thankfully he'd obeyed her rule about her room being off limits when he'd almost caught her pulling off the massive body suit in private. He'd apparently been passing by her room at the exact moment she'd been pulling the blasted thing over her head, the only way to get it on and off and have it appear seamless beneath her clothing. She'd let out a heavy groan as the thing had become entangled in her hair as she attempted to pull it over her head.   
  
His sensitive ears had picked up the noise emanating from her room and he'd paused to inquire if she was ok. Fortunately she'd managed to wiggle the thing back down over her head before she answered in Helga's voice. "I'm fine." she proclaimed gruffly. "Just passing an unladylike function Mr. McConnell from that awful dinner of yours..." she'd lied.  
  
Jake had accepted her explanation with a chuckle and wheeled himself down the hallway to his master bedroom. "Helga" had flopped back on the bed with a sigh of trepidation at how close she'd been to getting caught and decided in that moment that the suit stayed on unless she was showering, where her grunts would be covered.  
  
She even slept in the blasted thing now, which was decidedly uncomfortable, but she'd suffered through none the worse for wear. She was shocked back to their present conversation by his next soft comment.   
  
"I want to hire you Helga. I want you to stay." he whispered softly causing her to spin around in wide-eyed shock.   
  
Her mouth dropped wide then snapped shut hard before she spoke. "Hire me Jake?" she asked in her best Nurse Helga voice.  
  
He nodded, his brilliant blue eyes staring at a point somewhere just slightly above her head. "Yes, hire you Helga. Permanently. I want you to stay. I...I need you..."  
  
She stepped forward then, placing a hand on his shoulder and taking a moment to gather her best Helga voice. "You don't need me you big lug, you'll be fine."  
  
  
It was a couple of days later, when she was completely assured that Jake was adapting to the brace, and getting around on his own two feet again, that found "Helga" packing up the meager belongings she'd gathered in the weeks she'd stayed. It wasn't much. A few nurse's uniforms that fit her, some casual frumpy grandmotherly dresses, and accompanying shoes and so on. She'd already packed her makeup case, those pieces that transformed her into Helga on a daily basis.  
  
A movie came to mind then as she stared at Nurse Helga in the mirror one final time; the one about the father that becomes the old frumpy nanny to be with his kids. Mrs. Doublefire or something like that. It'd been years since she'd seen it, but the scenario fit never the less. Finally, she turned her blue eyes away from her reflection and began leaving Nurse Helga behind once and for all.  
  
Now that she knew Jake didn't remember her, she would leave him in peace. There was no need for him to die by her hand; he'd already suffered so much. She did wish in that one moment that she could give him back his sight. But that wasn't a possibility she knew. Dr. Adobe had informed her that Jake wouldn't see until he was ready to see again, despite his rather vehement protests that he was ready. He obviously wasn't or he already would have lifted whatever mental block he'd placed on himself.  
  
She was closing the door to her room when his soft voice came from the area of his bedroom. It was about 4 am and she'd decided that she would just go as quickly and quietly as she'd appeared. ~Damn his oversensitive ears...~ she cursed mentally. She must be slipping she realized as he spoke softly in the darkness of the early morning hour.  
  
"Leaving without saying goodbye?"  
  
She nodded, knowing he would hear the action.   
  
"I see." he said dryly.   
  
But he didn't and wouldn't until she came clean...completely clean. Which she wouldn't do. The timing wasn't right. It probably never would be she mused to herself.  
  
"Are you sure I can't entice you to stick around Shamu?" he asked, using the term as an endearment this time, with no teasing intended. "I...I know I'm considerably younger than you...but...I feel like we should be together Helga." he said softly in the darkness. "Your...your...something that I need...that I want in my life...beyond...beyond just..." he paused and she heard him gulp softly. "Beyond what we've had..." he managed to choke out on a soft entreaty.  
  
When she didn't respond, he tried again. "I...I know you don't think too highly of yourself...but I...I don't care what you look like..." he chuckled softly. "Hell, I can't 'see' you anyway..." he added, for the first time making light of his condition. "So what does it matter. That's not what I'm talking about. I...I want 'you', gruffness and all. You Helga..." he whispered out. "Gabe tells me though that you look like a grandmother, but all "I" see is a kind, caring, lovingly gentle woman...please...stay?"  
  
It was her turn to gulp softly, which she did, her heart aching with his soft pleas for her to stay. In his own way he was trying to tell her he wanted her as much as she wanted him. And being honest with herself again, she 'did' want him. She wanted the life they had settled into over the last weeks. She wanted that easy companionship...and so much more. But it wasn't meant to be. He'd never be able to get past the cop in him if she was truthful with him, which she would have to be...if she stayed.  
  
She wanted too...so badly that her heart fairly pounded with it. But she knew she couldn't. She pulled herself up straight and tall, turning her head over her shoulder as she spoke. "I'm sorry Jake. But I have other patients that need me now. My job here is done."  
  
Her heart literally broke with those words. This one man, in the weeks she'd spent with him had managed to make her forget everything she was. Everything she'd been in the last years of her life...and made her want to become something she'd never be.  
  
A wife...a woman...a lover.  
  
She heard his soft sob a moment before he spoke in the darkness. "Is that 'all' I am to you?" he begged softly.  
  
~NNNOOOOO...~ her mind and heart cried out. ~Noooo...you are so much more to me Jake McConnell...and I want to be so much more to you beyond "Nurse Helga", but it's just not meant to be in this lifetime.....~   
  
But what she said was a simple, "Yes." before she turned and walked away with her head held high.  
  
  
Time passed. Jake returned to somewhat of a normal life, even regaining his job as a detective with the LAPD. Although it was a desk job, and he used his computer extensively, even at home, it was still work that he loved. He would help his fellow detectives out by analyzing cases and evidence using a screen reader to translate the files for him, it was still being a cop, no matter how limited.  
  
He worked out everyday, sometimes for hours on end when he wasn't working a case, and kept himself in the best shape possible. Dr. Adobe continued to see him regularly even though he still had no explanation for his blindness other than Post Traumatic Stress Disorder due to the accident. A psychosomatic syndrome that only he would be able to solve in time he'd been told.  
  
The doctor even went so far as to recommend a therapy group that was comprised of Vietnam veterans in the hopes that talking to others that suffered the same mental disorder might help. But Jake refused. He got along well enough without his sight nowadays anyway. So what if he'd never see another sunrise or sunset again. He had plenty of them stored in his memory and would often find himself wandering out onto the balcony and sit there as the sun rose or set, imagining what he'd seen in the past and using that image.  
  
It was almost as good as the real thing. "Almost".  
  
The case that had caused his condition had never been solved and was eventually filed in the cold case box, though for awhile the Iraqian King had raised holy hell with the State Department over the death of his one and only son on foreign soil. He even went so far as to make a national debate out of it, buying time on the primary networks for a 1/2 an hour speech about the incompetence of the LAPD in their investigation into the case.  
  
But nobody listened, nor seemed to care, and the King was eventually appeased by the oil contracts his son had come to negotiate being rushed through the US legal system, in turn earning him quite a healthy profit for his country according to what Jake had heard anyway.  
  
His life was good on the overall, though he still missed Nurse Helga terribly. He hadn't lied to her the morning she'd left. He did want more with her. Still did to this day, but try as he might he hadn't been able to track her down since she'd left.  
  
The agency she worked for lost contact with her shortly after she'd left him as his caregiver and hadn't heard from her since. He'd had Gabe check DMV, police records, everything he could think of under the sun to try and find her, but it was like the ground had just opened up and swallowed her whole.  
  
It wasn't until many months later, when he'd finally managed to wheedle her last known address out of the agency that he'd begun to wonder if she'd ever even existed. Or if she'd been a figment of his imagination in his time of need. Created out of his own fanciful imagination as a friend and companion when he needed that compassionate understanding from another human being.  
  
But Gabe and Mary remembered her well, and they'd often sit around the dinner table in the months that followed and relive "Nurse Helga" moments. Like the time he and Gabe had gone out drinking and returned home singing to high heaven in the most off-key of voices ancient sea-diddies. He thought for sure she'd box his ears the next morning, but instead had taken great pleasure in banging around his apartment making enough noise to wake the very dead, not to mention the pounding between his ears from his hangover.  
  
When he'd wailed in complaint that she was an evil woman, she'd merely smiled tight lipped before slamming yet another pot on the stove loudly, commenting that it served him right for drinking while he was still on medication. The drugs had only intensified his hangover, as she'd warned him it would, and he shut up, taking his punishment as well as he could over the pounding in his head.  
  
Or the time she'd commandeered Mary for an entire day. They returned home in the early evening with a brand new woman beside her. He could still mentally see the picture Gabe had described breathlessly. She'd managed to turn Mary from the frumpy housewife she'd become into a drop dead gorgeous model of a woman complete with new hairdo, nails, and quite possibly the tightest fitting outfit Jake could imagine.  
  
Gabe had fallen in love all over again that night, and the couple had been deliriously happy ever since, with Mary keeping the new look to this day.  
  
Jake still felt the occasional twinge of anger at the assassin that had escaped him almost a year ago now, but now he was more thankful to him for bringing Helga into his life, and a few months of joy along the way, even though there had never been anything sexual between Nurse and her patient.  
  
Though he knew without a doubt that she'd wanted him just as much as he'd wanted her. It didn't matter that she was a large woman, or that she looked old enough to be his mother. More than once he'd smelled her attraction to him. In those rare moments that he managed to catch her off guard anyway, he'd smelled and felt on some level the intense, almost palatable sexual attraction and desire permeating off of her.  
  
Underneath all that weight she was all woman and she'd let that slip though on rare, unguarded occasions. He remembered the day in the park that they'd spoken of his accident. She'd seemed to take a particular interest in the situation; though he was sure somehow that she'd already known the story. Maybe the Nurses at St. John's had discussed his case with her. Or maybe she'd spoken to Dr. Adobe and gotten it from him. Either one of those was likely, but somehow her questions had seemed different that day. Almost as if she asked him out of a real need to know that he was ok with what had happened to him.  
  
But it wasn't anything that she'd said outright, but more what she hadn't said. Like when she'd asked what he would do when and if they ever managed to find the assassin. She'd asked him as a man, not as the cop he was, almost as if she was searching for absolution for him or something.  
  
Or for herself? ~But...but...~ his mind staggered over the possibility. It couldn't be. ~It just wasn't possible...was it?~ he wondered. He hadn't thought of it before, preferring to concentrate on the positive things she'd brought to his life in those months. Not her sudden disappearance or seeming lack of existence after she'd left. Until now, he'd merely chalked it up to her need for space, her need to distance herself from a younger man; or maybe a sense of shame that she was sexually attracted to him as well.   
  
A sensation he hadn't felt in almost a year slammed into his gut then, reawakening instincts he thought long dead. The pieces started to fit...he mused as he gulped passed a lump that was rapidly forming in the back of his throat. He reached out toward his computer and rolled the mouse around until the computerized voice of his screen reader told him he was over the file he wanted.  
  
He opened it with a single click and passed the cursor over the information it contained. The file was short and sweet, barely containing any information at all about the ample woman, and the realization hit him square between the eyes a short fifteen minutes later.  
  
He was head over heels in love with a highly paid, very professional, very cunningly deceitful assassin...  
  
  
It was several weeks later that again found Jake at his computer. It had just beeped to let him know that the file he'd been downloading was complete and he opened it with shaking fingers.  
  
He was still blind as a bat, but unconcerned with it. He'd spent the weeks since his shocking realization learning all he could from Interpol about the supposed assassin that had come to LA and blinded him. He'd poked and prodded, then poked some more until he'd finally managed to get the International agency to release their file on her.  
  
He was supremely disappointed when the file ended after only two pages. He'd been hoping that an international agency as large as Interpol was would have gathered more on her, but it was like she was a ghost. Literally. The file, what there was of it, was short, sweet and to the point.  
  
In other words, they didn't know jack SHIT about the highly paid, highly professional assassin. They had given her a name though. The Chameleon and had credited her with at least 500 known hits over the years. He whistled softly as the computerized voice read the pages over again.  
  
According to what they did know, though, she was capable of just about anything. She was a mistress of disguise, so much so, that no known picture of her even existed. She was a master of hand to hand, as testified to by a few that had managed to survive her wrath. Weapons were like extensions of her hands, guns, knives, swords, throwing stars, even chairs and tables according to the file, even something as simple as an ink pen. Or even a paperclip according to the report. She was credited with at least one hit that had a paperclip as the weapon of choice, having been sent through the target's eye and right into his brain.   
  
It had taken him a few weeks to die from the internal bleeding it had caused, but he did die. It was after receiving this file that he began to investigate the actual targets she was credited with. A picture quickly began to emerge then. One that was fascinating at the same time it was scary as hell.  
  
He hadn't told anyone of his discovery, or his supposition about Nurse Helga, not even Gabe, preferring instead to have all the facts, or as much as he could gather before he said anything.   
  
So it was as the weeks passed, and he dug deeper and deeper into her that this picture began to emerge in his mind, and in his heart. Yes, she was a highly professional, and according to the reports, highly paid international assassin, but at the same time, she wasn't an outright murderer either.  
  
As the pieces began to fall into place he came to realize that she, or Helga as he was still calling her though he knew without a doubt that wasn't her real name, was so much more. The contracts she'd taken were all on people that undoubtedly deserved to die, he realized with a shock.  
  
Example after example came to mind; A drug lord that was too big for his britches and had escaped conventional justice to continue his reign of terror at the expense of the innocents around him. An abusive father, who had enough money to pay off and tip the scales of Justice even though he'd murdered his poor children. A politician that had murdered an intern some years before, but escaped the 'legal noose' because of his position in the government, even though the case had gone to trial.  
  
The list went on and on. Each of her targets had been someone that was darkly evil and had slipped the handcuffs of the law. Even the Prince, who it was reported in certain circles dabbled in the darker side of slave trading of white women that were kidnapped from American soil. And his visit to the US was to gain more slaves for his Harem back home and not for the oil contracts as they'd been told.  
  
Only one contract that she'd been credited with would raise an eyebrow; The assassination of a young Hollywood star outside a Rave club in New York. But even then, there were unconfirmed reports that he'd been raping his groupies over the last years, and thought himself untouchable. That part was unconfirmed though according to what he could find anyway.  
  
But there was one thing that raised his hackles; A charge that had been dropped against the young star right there in LA. He found it on the system, buried so deeply that it took him days to dig out the file. It listed the name and address of one of his victims though the charges she'd wanted to file had never gone to court. Though from the report he finally dug up, she'd seemed adamant in her statement that she was forcibly raped at knifepoint by the handsome actor. Then it just as suddenly disappeared from their records.  
  
He reached out and picked up the phone, dialing the number listed and waited as a recorded message told him her number had been changed and was unlisted. It took him another day or so to get the number, and pulling a few strings down at the phone company helped, but he finally had a number for the young lady.  
  
When he dialed it a few nights later, she answered on the second ring, her voice sure and happy as she said, "Hello?"  
  
"Is this Margarite Sheldon?" he asked in his most official tone.  
  
"Yes, can I help you?" she returned.  
  
"My name is Jake McConnell. I work for the LAPD in their cold case department." he stated, his stomach and gut doing a strange thing in that moment. It wasn't an outright lie, nor was it the complete truth, but he felt justified. He had to know. Had to confirm his suspicions.   
  
He heard her soft intake of shocked breath then she said, her tone confident again. "Yes, can I help you?"  
  
"Well, ma'am, we were going through some old cases recently and found your report about a violent date rape and wanted to follow up to close the case." he stated softly, the lie coming easily now that he'd gotten over his initial fear of a moment before.  
  
"I see." she whispered softly after a moment. "What can I do for you Mr. McConnell?"  
  
"Well, I won't take much of your time ma'am, I just have a few questions..." he returned.   
  
They spent almost an hour on the phone after that and as he hung up the phone, his heart lifted with joy in that one moment. Joy because his suspicions had been right on the nose.  
  
"Helga" wasn't just some vigilante that went about killing for the sake of killing. She was so much more.  
  
She was Justice...Justice for the innocents that were harmed by the evils of this world, Justice for those that couldn't and wouldn't ever be able to gain it for themselves through conventional methods. And she was damned good at it.  
  
  
The day found her lounging, once more, beside a fireplace. She'd ended up in the Swiss Alps this time, preferring it in winter as well as any other place in the world. She stared in lazy contentment into the flames in front of her, her eyes half lidded with sleepiness. She was stretched out on one of the many couches in the lounge, drink in hand, quite bored in that moment.  
  
The last months had found her restless and longing, though in reality she wouldn't admit to herself what she was longing for. Or even attempt to gain it back again. Those months with Jake were long over, despite what her heart seemed to command her to do over and over again.  
  
Her heart wanted her to return to LA and confess all, the consequences be damned. But her mind realized the folly of that suggestion each and every time, so she remained separate and apart from it as much as she could. Working helped alleviate some of the longing she felt, but it was in moments like this that, moments when she was alone and without focus on a target, that her heart and her mind would have the age old argument she'd lived with for well over a year now.  
  
~Go back to him...tell him...he loves you...you can trust him...~ her heart would scream at her mind.  
  
~Who you trying to kid pump boy?~ her mind would promptly respond. ~He's a 'cop'...what, you want to see us in jail for the rest of our lives...or 'worse'...on death row as a serial killer?~  
  
~Jake would never do that...~ her heart would cry out intensely, to which her nose would snort in disbelief. Knowing that while Jake might love her, he certainly wouldn't be able to get past the cop he was and not turn her in.  
  
It was just too much a part of his makeup. Just like being a professional assassin was of hers. It was just not something one could easily set aside no matter how much the heart might want too. They were only the sum of their parts and their pasts.   
  
Hers were darkly evil, bordering almost on insanity, while his were bright and good...bordering on heavenly.   
  
She wondered in that moment, not for the umpteenth million time in the last year how he was doing these days. What he was up too. Had he regained his sight? she wondered on more than one occasion. If he had, was he an active cop again? She just didn't know, and would do nothing to find out in the slightest, no matter how much she wanted...no needed to know in these moments.  
  
Had he moved on? Fallen in love and gotten married? Her heart screamed out for her to reach for her cellular and find out. Unconsciously, she found her hand digging into the bag beside the couch and her fingers doing just that of their own accord.  
  
It was answered on the second ring by a happy sounding female. No doubt some blond LA bombshell with tanned skin, long legs...and big melons as he'd termed the once.  
  
"Is Jake around?" she found her mouth moving to ask the question, despite the jealous rip of anger that flowed through her veins.  
  
"Oh, I'm sorry he's not. Can I take a message?" she asked pleasantly enough.  
  
"Umm...I'm an old friend. You wouldn't happen to know how I could get in touch with him would you?" she found herself asking with a note of dread and a lump in her throat.  
  
The woman on the other end of the line, 'hmmmm'ed for a moment before saying, "Well, last I heard he was over in Europe somewhere. London I think?" she paused and she could practically 'hear' the wheels turning in the woman's mind. "No...wait...that's not right. Switzerland...yes," and she heard the snapping of fingers in the background. "That's it. Switzerland."  
  
She hung up the phone quickly, not bothering to reply and launched herself off the couch like she'd been fired out of a canon. If Jake was in Switzerland, then he knew. Or he suspected...either way it didn't bode well for her, or for him.  
  
For just the briefest of moments the assassin in her debated the wisdom of sticking around to finish the job, then the woman in her overruled that instinct.  
  
So...she ran.  
  
  
Jake cursed silently to himself, fuming in outrage at the young, pimply face clerk behind the desk of the hotel in the Swiss Alps. He'd just missed her...by less than a day. ~But how?~ he wondered. Not even Gabe knew what he was up too.  
  
After his second shocking realization in less than a year, he'd still kept silent about his discovery, even to Gabe. He wanted to confront her himself. Wanted to know...without a doubt in his mind, or his heart, what she was about.  
  
He'd put in for an extended leave of absence shortly after the phone call with the movie stars victim, stating on the paperwork that it was a temporarily indefinite leave. In other words he didn't know when or even if he'd be back.  
  
His eyesight, after both of the heart-wrenching realizations, had returned, albeit slowly. It was a couple of weeks after the second one that the veil was fully lifted from his eyes and he could see the world again in shocking clarity. But he still hadn't said anything, even to Gabe about it, preferring to let his long time partner think him just in need of a vacation, instead of a man bent on a mission.  
  
He thought back on the day they'd said goodbye in the airport. He'd seen Mary's new look just a couple of days before and it had taken all his internal and mental discipline to not let his eyes widen in shock at seeing her for the first time. She was so far removed from the woman he'd known all those years...but the change was a good one. He could see it in her eyes, and in Gabe's as well. She had much more confidence than she'd probably ever had before.  
  
And it was thanks to Helga. Or The Chameleon...or whatever the hell her name was. It was after his sight had returned that he'd discretely sneaked a look at the pictures Gabe had taken that fateful day in front of the hotel.  
  
He'd commandeered them and taken them to a pro and had them blown up considerably until, even though the image was fuzzy, her outline blurred slightly, he could tell it was indeed the same woman that had been on the roof. Without a doubt. But still he'd said nothing, destroying the photos, both his copies and the ones at the precinct and the negatives. It wouldn't be looked into as the case was long dead, but he still had felt good about doing it.  
  
But now he had a face, if not a name, and a good description, which he'd just finished giving to the younger clerk. To which he was promptly told that she'd checked out late last night, about 1am swiss time.  
  
Again his mind tripped over how she'd known to leave. Or was it simply a matter of timing. Did she have another job? Was she being hunted? He wanted to know...no, he needed to know, so he asked the youth, with a flash of his badge as he did so. "Has anyone else been here looking for Ms. Maxwell?" he said reading her name from upside down just above it's place in the ledger book.  
  
"No Monsiuer. No one butz you..." he drawled out in his heavily accented voice, struggling in his effort to speak English.  
  
"How long was she here?" he asked, trying again to decipher the numbers of her stay.   
  
"Several dayz Monsiuer." he said after checking the ledger. He'd been impressed with not only Jake's seemingly massive height and girth, but the twinkling gold badge as well. "She waz paid upz throughz the 13th..." he supplied with a helpfully hopeful look up at Jake.  
  
Jake turned away with a nod of his head. Paid up through the 13th, but leaving unexpectedly several days shy of that date. She'd obviously left in a hurry, because he'd noted her account still held a plus in the old-fashioned ledger book.   
  
In this day and age of computers, the resort set high in the Alps had stuck to the age-old ways of things, not bothering to update themselves. It had taken every cop instinct he had in his bones to even track her this far. That and a lot of money greasing palms along the way. Money that he had from his dad's inheritance, but was rapidly dwindling in the months he'd spent on the road looking for her.  
  
It was late, and he knew the last shuttle back into the small mountain town below them that would serve him to return to civilization had long since left. "I'd like a room please." he said softly, passing along the credit card to check himself in for the night.  
  
He was lying on his bed, a bed that was far too short for him in this culture of primarily small people, and his naked feet were bouncing lazily over the end. His hands were folded behind his head and he stared blankly up at the ceiling above him.   
  
He pondered over how she'd seemed to know he was coming. Or maybe she hadn't, and had merely taken another contract and left. In the months he'd been tracking her down, he'd noted that it was not an uncommon occurrence for her to check out before her departure date.  
  
Shortly there after somewhere in the world Justice would come calling some unfortunate soul. But still, she always seemed to pick up her tab, or get a refund from her pre-paid stay, at least until here and now. Which, his gut told him, that she knew he was coming. Or thought he might be. He couldn't tell which...  
  
He'd placed a call to the young lady that was apartment sitting for him while he was gone, letting her know that he was still alive and kicking merrily and having a ball in the snow of Switzerland the day before. That was the only thing that he could think of that might have tipped her off. But she wouldn't have called him? Would she? She hadn't thus far, and if it was one thing he'd learned in the past months it was that she was somewhat a creature of habit, as strange as that sounded.  
  
For instance, each time she left somewhere, what clothing she had would mysteriously turn up in a good will shop or thrift store nearby. He knew from the airlines that she never carried more than a small carryon if anything at all, preferring to buy what she would need when she arrived. She'd never been photographed anywhere; staying mostly in places that did not sport a lot of security.  
  
Once he'd figured out that little habit, she'd been a bit easier to track. But she always stayed in large populated areas with lots of smaller resorts and hotels, some that didn't even keep records if a stay was paid in cash, so it hadn't been that easy.   
  
And she jumped around...'a lot'. She never stayed close to a hit, and would often times end up on the other side of the planet from a recent one. Or sometimes she would stay nearby...within a state or country or two. It just depended. On what he didn't know, because he hadn't yet fully figured out how she thought or operated.  
  
He did know one thing though. She was damned good at what she did. She never left behind even so much as a scrap of evidence that could be used against her. She never contacted the innocent victims of her targets, she never waited around to see the aftermath of her work, and she never, ever paused in her killing once a target was set.  
  
It was almost as if once Justice had been settled in her mind there was no turning back. No regrets. But again, she always seemed to make sure that her targets were truly guilty. And she'd taken down some very high-powered individuals over the years. People surrounded by security, both of the American variety, and internationally.  
  
One particular case came to his mind then. A Columbian drug lord that had surrounded himself with the best mercenaries that money could buy to try and thwart her contract. But he'd failed. And failed miserably from the photos he remembered of the scene he'd been able to dig up from the police of the country where the hit had taken place.  
  
She'd used one of those explosives...like the one that had blinded him, crushing the man with his own bedroom roof then burning him beyond recognition afterwards. The fire, like the one in LA had burned itself out quickly, though it had burned intensely for several moments, ensuring that nothing would survive it.  
  
It wasn't overkill per se, just insurance. Making sure that there was no chance he might get lucky and survive the caved in bedroom.   
  
He sat back now, crossing his long legs as they dangled over the end of the short bed, sighing softly with awe for a moment. A discrete knock on the door broke his thoughts from his musings and he rose to answer it. He drew his 9mm, but kept it behind the door so as not to alarm whomever might be on the other side. He cracked the door and leaned his heavily muscled chest against it as he looked at the shorter woman on the other side. She was obviously part of the hotel staff, for she wore a maid's uniform as was typical in this part of the world.  
  
She held a silver platter up toward him and curtsied once, her head bowed in respect. Automatically he reached out and grabbed the single envelope that had his name scrawled across the front in a bold, flowing script.   
  
He murmured a thank you, and then shut the door without a second glance.   
  
  
So, he had regained his eyesight after all, she mused to herself as she walked confidently back down the hallway. The fishnet of her stockings made a strange noise as she moved, like an old pair of corduroy pants or something, but she was in no hurry. She'd seen no flicker of recognition in his seeing eyes, and her note would just have to be enough. The note she'd held out to him.  
  
Her heart had slammed painfully at seeing him again though and it cried out now to turn around and go back, to run into his arms and confess all. But she didn't and kept her stride carefully smooth and controlled as she moved down the hallway away from him. For the last time.  
  
She had to know. Had to see him just one last time to make sure he was ok. Her stomach clenched in agony at the image he'd presented her with as he leaned against the door. Once again the very picture of masculinity with is naked chest, trim waist, and long legs encased in tightly hugging denim jeans.  
  
She'd known he had a weapon she could see in his eyes, but it hadn't mattered to her. His "pea-shooter" wasn't a threat and if he'd fired at her, it would merely have been nothing more than annoyance.  
  
She heard the door open behind her, heard him step out into the hallway again, staring after her retreating back for just a brief moment before he reacted. "FREEZE..." his rampaging bellow reached her ears. "LAPD...YOUR UNDER ARREST..." he added a moment later.  
  
She stopped, remaining unmoving as he moved to pad down the hall in her direction. She felt the hairs on the nape of her neck stand up, and she knew that characteristic 9mm was trained with deadly accuracy right at her heart. Which now pounded furiously in the moment, at long last feeling the rush of adrenaline she'd longed to find for the last couple of years.  
  
When he was within earshot, he paused, saying calmly, "Let me see your hands..." in his best 'police officer' tone, stern and commanding, much as Nurse Helga had been so long ago.  
  
But she didn't move, asking instead in a soft, almost timid sounding voice, "How did you know Jake?"  
  
His one word stunned her to her very core. "Lilacs..."  
  
She groaned inwardly at her own stupid selfishness over something so simple as shampoo. It smelled of lilacs and she never used anything else, that being one of the few things she carried or bought on a regular basis no matter where she was.  
  
On the outside, she chuckled softly as she said. "Don't do this Jake. I don't 'want' to kill you...but I will..."  
  
She paused for a moment before adding. "I won't go to jail." in a confident, resolved tone. "I'm too wild..."  
  
  
Jake's heart was breaking as they stood there in the 3am silence of the deserted Swiss hotel. He wanted to reach out and touch her in that moment, more than anything else he'd ever wanted in his life. He wanted to reassure himself that she was indeed here...alive...and right in front of him, and not some ghostly nightmare that had risen up in his sleep to torment him once again.  
  
He drew in a long breath of air again, the scent of her shampoo floating to his still over sensitive nose. Despite the fact that his eyesight had returned, his other senses had remained alert and functioning well above normal. That was what had clued him to the fact that the maid was her. The distinct smell of lilacs that was hers alone. Or at least what he thought of as hers. A scent he well remembered from Nurse Helga and in those rare moments when he'd only been a step or two behind her in the chase and he'd been able to get something that she'd worn.  
  
A large lump formed in his throat then, and had to swallow hard to get around it and speak in a sure and confident tone. "Helga...or whatever your name is...you're under arrest for the murder of Prince Ahammaed Sobe of the Iraqian providence of Demlahsire, and his 14 personal entourage..." he said, though his heart felt like it was about to shrivel up and die right there in his chest.  
  
"Jake...don't make me do this..." she said when he was finished with his command. "Please..." she begged him as her eyes teared over. She really didn't want to kill him...she'd realized as she'd seen him again that she did love him, and while they never had a chance at a life together, she wouldn't...she couldn't kill him...  
  
In the split second it takes a heart to beat once, an idea came to her. An idea that just might save them both. She spun then, without another word, lightening fast reflexes taking over her mind and reactions as the assassin came to the forefront of her existence.  
  
Everything slowed, yet happened all at the same time. The silver, heavy tray she'd been holding flew across the small space between them and slammed right into his forehead with a heavy sounding crunch. The gun in his hand, on which he had his finger on the trigger, rocked, billowing a puff of smoke as the bullet left the muzzle.  
  
She felt the burning flash of pain across her side and filed it away in her mind for later examination as his massive frame crumpled to the floor, out like a light.   
  
She didn't have much time she knew, and it took every ounce of her reserves of strength to set her plan into motion. A plan, while realized on the spur of the moment and out of some almost desperate need to save them both, might just be crazy enough to work, she only hoped she hadn't inadvertently killed him with the tray.  
  
  
Jake struggled upward from the darkness of sleep, his mind fuzzy and his head physically pounding in the aftermath of whatever had happened. The images were fuzzy, and something tried to nag it's way through the pounding inside his skull, but he pushed it away not wanting to be bothered.  
  
He pushed open his eyes then, panicking slightly when he was at first met with darkness. For just a brief moment his massive heart pounding against his ribcage, picking up the rhythm in his head, until he realized that there was something over his eyes, and he wasn't blind again.   
  
His mouth was as dry as a Texas summer and his tongue was met with cloth. There was a gag as well, he mused, as he jutted his chin forward in an effort to dislodge it. But it was tied tightly behind his neck he soon found out, pulling at the corners of his mouth though not uncomfortably.  
  
Just tight enough to keep his tongue pinned to his lower jaw and any sound he might make unintelligible beyond a few feet. He felt the heavy, wide leather at his wrists then, and began to discretely pull at them. Somewhere just above the pounding cacophony in his head, he heard a chain rattle.  
  
He was a prisoner, the cop in him realized, and he truly did panic then, beginning to buck and heave viciously at the restraints, blindfold and gag. But it was a useless effort he realized soon enough as he lay back against the comfortable bed on which he was spread-eagled with a slight cursing groan. Whomever his captor was had bound him well and good he realized as his fumbling fingers grazed across a most sturdy padlock against the leather of his cuffs.  
  
It was then, that the man in him took over, placing himself back in the position of being blind and helpless, and he let his other extremely sensitive senses kick in. He heard a soft chirping, like a bird, or a cricket in the far distance. A dog barked somewhere. The bed rattled and moaned like it was old, ancient even when he moved, so he stilled himself like a statue, taking short light breaths and concentrating deeply as he listened and smelled.  
  
He caught the whiff of flowers, though they weren't readily identifiable beyond smelling sweet and light. He caught the lightest whiff of coffee, as it was far away as well from wherever he happened to be. The tiniest scent of eggs cooking floated to him then and his stomach rumbled in protest at the smell.   
  
A breeze chose that moment to softly caress his skin, and he realized with a jerking start that he was quite naked. Completely and 'totally' naked.  
  
  
He had no idea how much time passed, but eventually he heard a soft padding of feet coming closer and closer. His senses were still in overdrive mode and he easily recognized the smell of lilacs as it grew closer to the bed.  
  
She didn't wait long before speaking in that same beautifully melodious voice he remembered from the rooftop of the Waldorf oh so long ago. What seemed like another life time.  
  
"Awake at last I see." she said and he felt her sit on the bed next to his hip. Her hand came up and roved lovingly over his wide, stretched chest and she mumbled something that sounded like "Gods I wanted to do that for ages..." as her hands roved over him lovingly before pulling away again.  
  
"MMMMMPHHHTTTTTTT...." he tried to spit around the gag, but the sound not understandable even to him.  
  
"Would you like me to remove that gag Jake?" she asked in such a tender, melodious tone that he thought he'd die from its concern.  
  
He could only nod, not bothering to say more. A moment later he felt his head being lifted and the knot at the back of his neck being undone with sure, confident fingers, then the cloth removed slowly. He swallowed then, gulping past the dryness in his mouth and waited a moment before he could speak. "Let me go Helga. It's a Federal Offense to kidnap a member of law enforcement..." he said with all the bravado he could manage as helpless as he felt.  
  
But "Helga" laughed at him. She laughed at him, and he found himself fighting off a smile of his own at the wonderfully, honest sound. When she could, and he heard her wiping the tears out of her eyes as she spoke, she said softly. "It's only a Federal Offense Jake my dear, if said kidnapping takes place on American Soil and said kidnapee is a current member of a Law Enforcement Agency and on active duty..." she supplied and he heard the smile still in her voice.   
  
He wanted to see her smile though and shifted his head toward his shoulder to try and dislodge the blindfold again. But it too was tied as tightly as the gag had been and he gave up a few minutes later.  
  
"Please..." he croaked out on a whisper a moment later. "Please take this off..." he said lifting his head towards her. "I...I don't want to feel blind again..."  
  
He heard her soft sigh, and thought for just a moment that she was going to do it, but then she spoke, dashing his hopes. "I'm sorry Jake. I can't do that. When I release you I don't want you to know where you've been...so you can't find me again..." she stated softly and he felt her hand softly caress his cheek with the backs of her knuckles. "Don't worry though, I am going to release you eventually." she explained in that same soft tone, that voice that was beautiful to his ears.  
  
He whimpered for a moment, deep in the back of his throat at his helplessness, then groaned softly leaning his cheek sideways to her touch.   
  
"Plea..," but his plea was cut off by her own lips as they suddenly touched to his, grasping his like she was a woman dying of thirst and he was the water.  
  
He hadn't realized she was so close to him. Either that or she was lighting fast. The fuzzy image of a silver platter sailing right for his forehead with lightening quickness came to mind and despite the intense satisfaction and pleasure he was getting from being kissed by her, he jerked away and said with a startled sounding croak.  
  
"You HIT me..." in an accusing tone of voice.  
  
She chuckled again, sitting up and away from him with a soft sounding sigh. "Yes, Jake. I hit you." she said, reaching out to finger the diminishing lump on his forehead. "I'm sorry for that, but it was the only way I could get your attention without having to kill you...and...and..." she stammered for just a brief moment before adding, "I couldn't to do that."  
  
  
The days passed...rolling one over the other as he lay there in his dark prison. "Helga" was again surprising him and proving just what a contradiction she was. Or he thought she was.  
  
As when he was blind, they fell into an easy routine, despite the circumstances that surrounded him. Each morning, or at least what he figured to be morning, she'd come into his room, breakfast tray in hand. She'd remove the gag he'd worn all night and feed him the most delicious meals, everything from steak and eggs, to bacon and eggs, to pancakes, to waffles and everything imaginable in between. When he was finished, she'd help him with his bodily functions, holding either bedpan or tube for his use over his private areas, then give him his daily sponge bath.  
  
She'd replace the gag and disappear until lunchtime, then return to feed him again. What words he managed to get out in between bites was met with a cold silence each day. But truthfully, she didn't give him much of a chance to talk as she fed him in the darkness of the blindfold. When he looked like he was opening his mouth to speak, she'd shove a bite of some concoction or another in, forcing him to chew or choke.  
  
After lunch, she'd replace the gag and leave him be again, frustrated and alone...and helpless...and vulnerable.  
  
Dinner was the same affair with her shoving food into his mouth almost as quickly as he swallowed. But it was after dinner he soon found himself looking forward too more than anything else.  
  
After he'd eaten his fill, she'd replace the damnable piece of cloth in his mouth and disappear for a short period of time. Almost as quickly she was gone, she'd return on silent feet. Sometimes the only way he knew she had was by her soft breathing, which would eventually come to his ears in the darkness of the blindfold, but he never knew exactly how long she'd been there.  
  
It was no wonder she'd never been caught. She had to be half jungle cat...that was the only explanation for her silent approaches, that or a hell of a lot of training...not to mention experience.  
  
The first nights she'd just stand beside his bed, and he could feel her eyes boring into him in intense concentration. She remained stonily silent, and he grunted and groaned behind his ever-present gag in an effort to get her to say something...anything...to alleviate the silence.  
  
But she didn't until finally one night she came farther into the room than normal, almost to the side of the bed even and spoke two words softly. "I'm sorry..." she said and he could hear the tears in her voice.  
  
She'd disappeared that night as well; gone into the darkness, but the next, after his normal routine of the day, when she'd come to him she'd actually made it to the bed and sat beside him.  
  
He realized then that she was naked as well, as her slim hip touched his on the covers of the bed. He shuddered but it was not out of revulsion...but need. He'd come to learn many things about her as the days passed. The gentleness of her fingers as she fed, bathed and took care of him, the swell of her breast when it would brush against his nakedness. The long line of her legs when she curled one onto the bed to sit and feed him.And then there was the heavenly smell of lilacs that always announced her presence. Then would linger in the hours after she'd left him again.  
  
But this night was different. It was the night after she'd whispered those two words and she'd come to him as was her usual routine. She stood by the bed for a long time, her eyes boring into him as always, but tonight she spoke, her voice stronger than it had been the night before.  
  
"I'm sorry Jake." she said, coming to sit on the bed next to him. She reached out and touched him on his chest and his heart skipped a beat. It was the first time she'd touched him without a purpose, other than wanting too since she'd taken him prisoner. "I'm sorry for blinding you..." she said again. "I never intended for you to be hurt...I swear..."  
  
He lifted his head then, groaning heavily behind the gag and mumbling his wish to speak, but she laid a finger to his lips, stilling his head with her gentle touch. "No..." she said softly. "Let me get this out, otherwise I'll never say it Jake." she begged him on a choked sounding voice.  
  
He lay his head back at her soft plea and waited for whatever she wanted or needed to say or do. He heard her shaky sigh, then felt her as she laid across his wide, stretched out chest.  
  
"I'm so sorry Jake McConnell," she began again, her tone more confident, though there was a tearful sound to her voice as she went on. "I never meant for you to be hurt that day. I honestly didn't even know you were there. You or Gabe. You weren't my targets." she said, and he felt the warm wetness of her silent tears drop onto his chest.  
  
He groaned softly again, pulling viciously at the restraints that held him to the bed. He wanted...no he needed to touch her in that moment. Hold her...tell her that he knew that...that he forgave her...which, he realized with a shock that stilled his struggles, that he did forgive her. Completely.  
  
But with the gag in his mouth he couldn't tell her that. He lifted his head then, slowly reaching out blindly for her and doing the only thing he could to make her understand and offer his own brand of comfort in that moment. He ever so gently rubbed his cheek on the top of her head where it rested just beneath his throat.  
  
That was the moment that started it all, the whole long and sorted story of what and who she was. Every last detail of everything she'd done. Every contract...every hit...all of it.   
  
Each night she'd come to him, in the darkness, and confess her sins long into the wee hours of the morning. She left nothing out. Well, she didn't exactly get gory about it, but she didn't omit anything either. She even told him about the movie star and that she'd done it that one for free, just because he deserved it. She knew he'd never come to justice...that he'd always buy off the witnesses against him.   
  
Which Jake knew he had with the Sheldon girl. She'd confessed as much to him on the phone, though not in so many words. But the implication was there nonetheless during that hour-long conversation he had in what seemed another lifetime.  
  
But not once did she remove his gag or his blindfold during her sorted confessional. She spoke, her tone soft and confident, melodious as it was, as if she was merely stating fact as to what she'd done in her life.  
  
Finally she came to a point, some weeks later, that there was nothing more left to tell. She'd bared her soul completely to him and there was nothing more to say.  
  
It was on this night though, that she left that damnable gag out after dinner. She seemed unconcerned that he might yell out for help, that he might try and gain someone's attention to come and free him. He'd learned from the sounds during the day, that they were alone, wherever they were and their nearest neighbor had to be a good five miles away...if not more. So, he knew as she walked away with the dinner dishes from which she'd just fed him, that it would be a wasted effort to scream for help.  
  
So he did the only thing he could and waited for her to return. Time passed and for one heart-wrenching moment he was afraid she wasn't coming back, then he heard it, her soft breathing from across the room. He waited some more, relaxing with just merely the knowledge that she hadn't left him, to see what she was going to do.  
  
He had so many questions for her. So many things he wanted and needed to say, especially after her heartfelt confessions of the weeks before. Sometimes she'd lay on his wide chest and cry out parts of her story, others she was coldly factual in her telling, showing no emotion whatsoever. And each time he'd want to hold her, comfort her, be with her, but she'd kept him tied to the bed as he was now. Gagged and helpless...forced to listen to her long tale as the nights passed one by one.  
  
There was never anything sexual between them, physically anyway, beyond a few kisses she'd impart him with, or the lazy, loving touch of her hands on him. But underneath everything that had happened over the last weeks, everything she'd told him, there was the under current of sexual tension that was just growing stronger with each passing day...and night for that matter.  
  
Underlying everything was this heated passion that seemed just out of reach of both of them. The cop in him wanted to take her in right then and there, after her confessions. The long years in law enforcement demanded he do the right thing.  
  
But the man in him wanted to hold her, touch her, comfort her...bring light and warmth to the long and very lonely life she'd led up until now.  
  
But it was only one question that he asked now as she stood there across the room from him waiting with a discernable expectation sizzling through the air toward him.  
  
"What's your name?"  
  
  
She'd come to him then, stretching out across his wide chest as she always did with a soft sigh and curling her arms beneath his back. She chuckled once she was settled, nuzzling against his skin for a long while before she spoke. "You know I can't tell you that Jake. Otherwise you might find me again." she said, rubbing the smooth soft plane of her cheek against his rock hard muscles.  
  
He shrugged as far as the bonds around him would allow and tried another tack. "Could you at least let me sleep in some other position tonight?" he asked softly. "It's not that this is uncomfortable," he added hastily, giving the chains at his hands and feet a slight tug, "Well...it is, but it's also getting old...."  
  
She sighed again and he felt her nod her acceptance of his request, but she made no move to do so right away. He figured she'd do it when she left him for the night as she always did. He lifted his head then, rubbing his cheek across the top of hers and giving her the softest of kisses before laying back down again.  
  
She rose, slowly, and he felt her prop herself up over him, knowing full well that her brilliant green eyes were staring down at him. He felt her fingers then, caressing along his cheeks and heard the smile in her voice when she asked. "Do you want me Jake?"   
  
He groaned deeply, for just a moment forgetting she'd removed the gag and taking a deep breath before being able to push the words past his lips. "More than I've ever wanted anything in my life...Helga..." he whispered softly, straining forward against leather and chain and lifting his head as far as he could in the dark to rub his cheek against her. "More than anything..."  
  
She kissed him then, her lips grasping onto his as if they had always been there. The undercurrent of sexual tension that had been sizzling between them for weeks picked that moment to make its full presence known.  
  
It sizzled through the air like lightening. Crackling and pounding along both their nerve endings for a long moment, singing a song that neither of them was a stranger too certainly, but never on such an intense level. It was almost a tangible thing between them, alive and sizzling hot as she pulled away from him breathlessly to lick her lips and speak softly. "I want you too Jake McConnell...cop or not..." she added and he would have sworn there was a note of teasing in there somewhere.  
  
Then her lips fell to his again, seizing him as he'd never been seized before by anyone. Jake was no saint. He'd had his share of girlfriends over the years, also his share of one night stands, but he'd always made it known that it wasn't to last. His hours were long, sometimes going for days on end, and his heart belonged to Law Enforcement.   
  
But in that one moment in time, he knew exactly where his heart belonged now. To this woman. And only to her. Law Enforcement be damned. He wanted this woman. He wanted this assassin in his life...he wanted to wake up and have her in his arms. He wanted her to carry his name for the rest of her life. He just wanted her...  
  
She pulled back, panting for a long while and he begged between hard gulps to pull air into his lungs. "Please Helga...let me love you..." he said with an indicative jerk on the chains that kept him on the bed. "Please...I won't run...I promise..."   
  
Jake McConnell had never begged for anything in his entire life. Not once. But now he found himself begging her. Begging his assassin. And she certainly was his assassin. She'd told him once, during the past weeks when he'd been forced to lay silent and listen to her tale, that he'd been the only person to ever track her down. He'd known in that moment that this woman was meant for him.   
  
That the Fates...or God, or whatever, had brought her into his life on that fateful day, long ago, for just this reason. Whatever would be, would be, he knew that now. And he wanted it.  
  
So he begged again. "Please...let me hold you...touch you..." he said softly, straining forward to touch her as best he could. She held his cheeks softly and he felt the warm wetness of the tears on her cheeks again as she nodded against him, but made no move to release him still.   
  
It was her tearful whisper then that gained his attention over the raging need within him...and the raging hard-on between his legs. "Jake...I have to know...are you going to turn me in?"  
  
So there it was, finally he thought to himself. Her reasonings for kidnapping him...bringing him here...wherever here was. He laid his head back on the bed then, sighing so deeply that his chest felt as if it was going to burst with a need for air, and the breaking of his heart. While he wanted this woman in his life more than anything else in the world, he was a cop first and foremost.  
  
As if she sensed what his answer was going to be, just as he opened his mouth to give it, she shoved the gag between his lips again, lifting his helpless head to tie it off without another word.   
  
He bucked furiously then, heaving his great strength against the steadfast metal of the chains that held him and growling out angrily in frustration until her soft voice reached him a moment later. "No...Jake I don't want to know..." her voice breathlessly soft. "I...I want to remember this for the beauty it holds..." she added, reaching out to caress his cheek softly.  
  
He strained again, putting every ounce of his being into freeing himself. But as always, the chains and leather held fast despite his considerable strength. He heard her rise from the bed, heading off in the direction of the door and he screamed out behind the cloth in his mouth, but she was already gone.  
  
  
She never returned and it was Gabe's voice that filtered through his sleepy senses sometime later with an exclaimed, "HOLY SHIT!!!!" as his gag and blindfold were summarily removed.  
  
Jake shook his head then, waking himself as Gabe set about unlocking the padlocks on his wrists then his ankles. Almost immediately Jake recognized where he was and he groaned deeply as he sat up for the first time in weeks.  
  
She'd brought him to his home in Texas, His father's old farmstead. Granted the bed in which he'd lain for weeks was new, but the rest of it was exactly the same as he remembered. His father's old, worn dresser sat in one corner of the room its mirror reflecting his haggard looking image as he raised anguished eyes to stare at himself.  
  
At least the wench had had the decency to dress him at some point though he couldn't remember when that had happened. It hit him then, the strange taste to the food she'd served him last. It carried an almost metallic taste and he merely chalked it up to a spice he couldn't identify. Until now.   
  
She'd drugged him, dressed him, and left him alone. She'd obviously called Gabe at some point otherwise he wouldn't be here. And Jake would still be shackled to the bed. Helpless.  
  
Gabe was standing back now, as he sat up and swung his naked feet over the side and placed them on the floor. Putting his elbows on his knees, he buried his face in his hands and cried for a long while.  
  
  
More time passed for Jake. After his rescue he'd confessed all to Gabe there in his old farmhouse. Spending a couple of hours telling him everything, His suspicions, his facts, the details of everything that had happened. He left out her confessional, preferring to keep the majority of that private, for later times when he could think on it.  
  
Gabe sat through the whole thing silently. When he was done Gabe turned incensed accusing eyes to him and huffed slightly. "I can 'not' believe you kept me in the dark about this..." he fumed through gritted teeth for a moment. But just as quickly as his anger appeared it was gone and the pacifist that was his friend was back saying easily. "But I understand why you did."  
  
A long silence permeated the bedroom then Gabe said. "Come on old buddy, let's get you home."   
  
Between the two of them they got Jake's massive bulk out to Gabe's car and headed back to LA in due course. It was halfway back on the drive that had been primarily silent while each man worked everything out in his own way that they stopped to eat at a roadside dinner.  
  
It was here that Gabe began to ask questions about everything that had happened in the weeks that he'd been gone. Sure Gabe had been worried over his friends whereabouts until Melody his house sitter had claimed to have gotten a call from him the week before saying that he was just fine and had gone to the Bahamas from Switzerland for some fun in the sun.  
  
"Melody swears up and down it was 'your' voice on the phone." he said when Jake raised astonished eyes from his plate to regard his long time friend. Gabe held up both his slim hands in defense when a glower began to mar Jake's normally smooth and easy-going countenance. "Scouts honor...but you know there's lots of tech out there buddy. If she's as good as you 'say' she is, surely she has some of it and could easily duplicate your voice."  
  
It certainly made sense. Even to the cop in him. But it hurt never the less that she would do something like that. Finally, he let the momentary anger go, and looked at Gabe again. "How did you find me?"  
  
"Well, it was the strangest thing really. Mary got this call the other day while I was at work. When I got home, she gave me a message from Helga of all people. Mary said she'd called, and they shot the shit for a good hour or so, then finally she'd informed my 'very' trusting wife that you were in Texas and needed my help on a case. That you were staying at your place and could 'really' use my help but were too proud to ask. Mary prodded her of course, being a cop's wife, but "Helga" wouldn't say anymore and merely hung up the phone." He waited a moment, taking a bite of his dinner, then went on.  
  
"Naturally my curiosity was aroused that your big lumox of a self would need 'my' help...so I hopped in the car...and..." he held out his hands to indicate the restaurant around them. "Here we are as they say..."  
  
Jake hung his head with a dejected sigh, pushing the food away from him. Gabe didn't say anymore for a long time until finally he asked calmly. "You love her don't you?"  
  
Jake nodded slowly before speaking a response. "Yeah...yeah I do Gabe...I do very much..."  
  
Gabe nodded his understanding and there was a long companionable silence between them that wasn't broken until they were back on the road and heading for LA again sometime later. "You think you'll ever see her again?" Gabe asked without turning his eyes from the road.  
  
"I hope so." was Jake's soft answer. "I sure as hell hope so."  
  
"You going to turn her in if you do?" Gabe asked after another long companionable pause.  
  
"For what?" Jake asked without looking at his long time friend.  
  
Gabe began to tick her offenses off on his fingers, his other hand on the wheel. "Kidnapping...murder...a 'string' of confessed murders...holding you hostage...blowing up the Waldorf Astoria..."  
  
Jake seemed to contemplate his words for a moment before addressing each in turn. "Can you prove she kidnapped me Gabe?"  
  
"Well...no but..."  
  
Jake stayed his words with his next question. "And can you prove that it was 'her' in that penthouse that day?"  
  
"Um...well...again...no but..."  
  
"And can you prove that it was 'she' that committed all the supposed murders?" Jake asked a third time, stilling his friend's words. "And it's not just 'hearsay'?" he added.  
  
"Well, no but...but..."  
  
"And can you 'prove' beyond a reasonable doubt that it was 'her' on that roof at the Waldorf?" Jake asked, still not bothering to have turned his way.  
  
"Well, no but you can...you were there...you saw her from less than five feet Jake...and 'everyone' knows about that 'legendary' memory of yours..." Gabe supplied.  
  
"You know, the mind is a funny thing old friend. It comes and it goes as we get older. Fading, fuzzing around the edges of memories...or traumatic events in one's life..." He let his words trail off in implication, letting it hang there for a long time, before adding softly, "And as for holding me hostage..."   
  
He finally turned to Gabe, his blue eyes sparkling with a deep mischief for a moment as he added, "I was just on vacation and ran into an old friend while I was back home. The case I was working on my father's land turned into nothing by the time you arrived and we came home..."  
  
Gabe turned and noted the look on his face in that moment, and a sly grin passed over his own slim cheeks. "Fair enough old friend...fair enough..."  
  
  
The months passed...winter turned to summer...then into fall in LA. Though there was no difference truth be told, save a few degrees in temperature. Jake returned to full active duty, once he'd proven that his eyesight was fully restored. He had his work, which was challenging mind, but he was heartsick never the less.  
  
He missed her. Missed her voice. Missed her touch. Just missed her. He kept an eye out for any sign that she might be working, or had worked he should say, but nothing ever caught his attention as the months passed. That's not to say that she wasn't working internationally, but just not locally. But still he hoped for some sign of her. Some thing that would let him know that she was ok.  
  
He hadn't bothered looking for her in those months. He'd been lucky enough to find her once, but he knew he wouldn't a second time. He just knew in his heart of hearts that he'd never see her again...unless she was ready.  
  
Which as the months passed, he began to be afraid that she never would be. He couldn't blame her though. Not one bit. She hadn't given him the chance to tell her he wouldn't turn her in. That he wanted her in his life...that the cop in him loved her too.  
  
  
  
Several more months passed and fall turned again to winter. It had been almost a year since he'd seen her last. His 32nd birthday was coming up he realized with a pang of longing in his heart. He still thought about her constantly, sending up a silent prayer to whatever god might be up there to keep her safe wherever she was.  
  
Christmas was just around the corner and he was out shopping for Gabe and Mary and their new baby, when a smell hit him full force, almost like a slap in the face. He spun this way and that in the crowded mall, trying to track it down to one person or area, but as quickly as it had come to him, it was gone, covered by another heavier smell of store bought perfume.  
  
Hanging his head, he was no longer in the mood to shop and instead headed back to the same apartment he still had in West Hollywood. He hadn't moved in the last year, though Gabe had suggested it on numerous occasions given his melancholy moods when he was off duty. But something kept him right where he was.   
  
He mused that it was probably a sense of connection to the place...and its connection to "Helga". Maybe it was that, but somewhere in the back of his mind, he felt that by staying in the apartment she'd always know where to find him. Though, an assassin of 'her' caliber would be able to find him wherever he went.  
  
But now, on this night, as he opened the door to his apartment and set his packages on the kitchen counter to wrap later, he breathed deeply and hung his head again. Silent tears sprung to his eyes in that moment and he breathed in deeply, again being assailed by the smell of lilacs that he would always associate with her.  
  
He'd watched the happy couples in the mall that night, gaily shopping for loved ones, or themselves and had felt his heart trip over itself in sheer agony. He knew his face showed his tortured look as he'd smelled the lilacs in the mall, but he didn't care. He'd even stopped by a jeweler's in a moment of weakness and stared longingly into the gaily decorated window at a set of wedding bands on one of the display stands.  
  
He'd almost walked inside and bought the jade one that had twinkled at him, its stone seeming to wink at him from the lights above it, but he hadn't. He'd refrained, finally turning away from the window after a long moment. He knew the stone would perfectly match her eyes even though he'd only seen their color once, two, very long years ago.   
  
He kicked himself then, wondering what had happened to him. He was moping around like some lovesick, pimple-faced teenager. What had happened to his ability to adapt to his surroundings. So she was gone...so what...he mentally berated himself.  
  
~What happened to not crying over spilled milk?~ he wondered in the next moment. ~Where was his father's sound advice now?~ he questioned on a soft sigh.   
  
"Somewhere in the world...with Jade green eyes, the most melodious voice I've ever heard, and a heart of gold despite the fact that she kills people for a living..." he muttered to himself.  
  
  
A few days later found him seated in Gabe's home for Christmas Eve. Both of them had taken the night off to spend it with Mary and the baby, knowing that she needed a break as well as they did. Jake had become like a man possessed in the weeks since his shopping trip and the smell, though he hadn't told Gabe his reasoning for it. But he was working non-stop, throwing himself into longer and longer hours until finally he'd come home and collapse into an exhausted stupor and sleep the sleep of the dead. Or the damned depending on how one looked at it.  
  
He'd done it mostly so he could forget her. So he could move on again. Get on with his life. But still, he never failed to send up a silent prayer each morning as he dragged himself out of bed, exhausted, to keep her safe wherever she was.  
  
But it was this night, as they all exchanged gifts that the strangest thing happened. Mary, who'd been handing out the appropriate presents all night long, picked up a small box from beneath the tree with a quizzical look on her face at Gabe. "Honey? Did you get this for Jake?" she asked as she held the tiny box aloft for them both to see.  
  
It was tiny thing, no more than a few inches squared and perched on its high, curved top was a single tiny green bow. A small card was attached just beneath it and Jake could see his name written on it.   
  
Gabe shook his head slowly at Mary's question and she said softly. "Well, "I" didn't get it for you Jake, so I guess Santa came early for you." she teased handing over the tiny box.  
  
Jake swallowed the large lump that had suddenly formed in his throat at the sight of the tiny thing. Somehow he knew without knowing what it contained even as he popped open the lid with his large finger. Nestled inside was the exact ring he'd stood staring at in the mall that day. It was lying inside its black velvet and twinkling at him enticingly, almost seeming to wink at him as it had in the window that night.  
  
He rose from his chair and turned to Gabe and Mary then. "I...I have to go. I'll come by tomorrow..." he said, and left without further explanation, but not missing the look they exchanged as he left.  
  
He drove like a man possessed. Weaving dangerously in and out of what little traffic there was, pushing his small sports car to it's limit and thankful that his fellow officers were in a calm mood this night, in the spirit of Christmas. Barely fifteen minutes after Mary had placed the tiny box into his hand, he was bursting into his apartment, his head swiveling left and right as he barreled through the spacious home.  
  
He felt a sense of dejection wash over him until he came to the balcony. At first he didn't see the shadowy figure that stood there, leaning calmly against the railing her booted ankles crossed over one another.  
  
He flipped on the light in the living room then, with shaking fingers and stared in disbelief as she pushed off the railing and came toward the light.   
  
For the first time in over two years, he saw her, the real her he amended himself. And there was no doubt in his mind that it was 'his' assassin standing before him, hands hanging loosely at her sides. Her brilliant green eyes roamed over him lazily, eyes he remembered so well...the eyes he'd seen in his dreams for months now, eyes that had haunted his dreams for the past two years.   
  
Then she smiled, brilliantly, showing perfectly straight white teeth to him held within her well-tanned cheeks. Dimpled cheeks he realized with a start. Her cheekbones were smooth and classically high and she could have been a model for any cover she chose. Her long hair was plaited into a single braid that fell just to her waist over one shoulder.  
  
She wore a one-piece 'cat-suit' of all black that hugged her well-formed body like a second skin. The image of the panther came to him again, despite her seemingly relaxed posture as she stepped a step closer.  
  
He reached out then with shaky fingers and touched her dimpled cheeks just above her smile. "Oh gods...is it really you?" he breathed out on a shocked sounding sob.  
  
She nodded once, the action causing her smooth cheek to caress his fingertips, and Jake thought he'd die from the sweetness of that one moment. "Yes, Jake it's me..." she replied softly after a long intake of breath. He could see the tiny spark of fear in her eyes and realized what a leap of faith she was taking just by being there in his presence.   
  
He gulped loudly in that moment, continuing to caress her cheek slowly, as if afraid she just might disappear, or was nothing more than a figment of his demented imagination, and that he'd finally snapped.  
  
But her shaky fingers reaching out for him a moment later told him he hadn't snapped, that she really was here, really was standing in front of him. Really was alive and breathing...and crying...he noted as he stared into her eyes just as the great tears she'd been holding in pooled over the brim and coursed down her smooth cheeks.  
  
"So...what happens now?" she asked on a soft, shaking whisper.  
  
He folded her to him then, pulling her roughly into his arms and she knew he'd never let her go. He buried his face in the crook of her neck and breathed deeply, inhaling the tell tale scent of lilacs. "I make an honest woman out of you..." he breathed against her skin, laying a soft, feather light kiss in the crook of her neck.  
  
She shuddered in his arms and he knew it was no longer out of fear, but a need. That same sexual attraction that had sizzled between them, reawakened with a fire neither of them expected. She leaned away slightly, pulling his face up, but staying within the circle of his arms as she held his cheeks in her long fingered hands.  
  
"Then I guess I should tell you my name, shouldn't I?" she asked, her brilliant green eyes glittering teasingly up at him.  
  
Jake could only nod helplessly, unable to speak past the large lump that had formed in his throat at her words. She waited for a long moment, smiling up at him through her own tears, then slowly snaked her arms around the back of his neck. With a slow, gentle pressure, she pulled his lips toward hers.  
  
And said her name...  
  
The End. 


End file.
